French GP: Toyota Saturday notes

Panasonic Toyota Racing will occupy the 9th row of the grid for tomorrow's French Grand Prix. The team has carried out extensive work on car set-up since the start of the weekend, but the TF102's performance has been hindered by a lack of traction - ...

Panasonic Toyota Racing will occupy the 9th row of the grid for tomorrow's French Grand Prix. The team has carried out extensive work on car set-up since the start of the weekend, but the TF102's performance has been hindered by a lack of traction - essential at Magny-Cours. This considered, Salo and McNish did a good job ending the one hour session in 16th and 17th positions.

Mika Salo

"Obviously I am not happy about my position, but I think that we got the best out of the car as it is at the moment. I have been having traction problems with the car since the first session yesterday, which have been improving, but we have not yet been able to find a complete solution."

Allan McNish

"A disappointing session. I honestly thought we would be a little bit more competitive in qualifying trim, but overall that was about the limit of where the car has been all weekend. On a more positive note, we worked mainly on race set-up in the free practice sessions, so I think we will have a better handling car for the race tomorrow."

Ange Pasquali - Team Manager

"Clearly it was not our best qualifying result of this year, but in terms of the work done on the car since yesterday we have made a big progression. It was an interesting session for us but there is still some work to do. We have been able to save one set of new tyres for tomorrow, which I hope will pay off somehow."

Mika Salo - Car No. 24
Position: 16th 1m13.837s
12/12 laps completed
Chassis: TF102/07
T-car: TF102/06

Allan McNish - Car No. 25
Position: 17th 1m13.949s
12/12 laps completed
Chassis: TF102/08