Formula 1

Monaco GP: Toyota race notes

Panasonic Toyota Racing will come away from today's Monaco Grand Prix with a solitary point after a battling drive to 8th place from Ralf Schumacher on a one-stop strategy. But it was a day of heartbreak for Jarno Trulli, who came within five laps ...

Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:04 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Panasonic Toyota Racing will come away from today's Monaco Grand Prix with a solitary point after a battling drive to 8th place from Ralf Schumacher on a one-stop strategy. But it was a day of heartbreak for Jarno Trulli, who came within five laps of making the podium after an inspired day's work around the streets of the principality.

The Italian made the most of a similar strategy to power his way up to 3rd place before he succumbed to a hydraulic failure, coasting to a halt on the way up the hill from Ste Devote. Toyota is scheduled to continue testing its new TF106B package at Barcelona this week in preparation for next month's British Grand Prix.

Ralf Schumacher:

"To come away with a point is something, but it could have been so much more for Toyota today. We lost too many places at the start and I spent the first half of the race behind Heidfeld. We were quicker but as usual here it was impossible to overtake and our strategy did not allow us to break out of the traffic."

"That put paid to our chances of getting a better result. Still, the car went well and I kept pushing and we ended the race in the final points-scoring position. It was a hard day's work out there but at least we have shown stronger pace this weekend and we must now look to build on that in the coming races."

Jarno Trulli:

"Once again it's a tale of woe for me! It's frustrating because I am giving my best, doing everything I can in qualifying and the race and yet things are just not going right for me. Our pace was good today and the tyres were consistent. I could have gone quicker but I spent most of the afternoon in traffic so I never had a clear lap to really push. When I came into the pits with Barrichello I could tell that he had forgotten to hit the pit limiter."

"At the end I was just bringing the car home and everything was under control until the sudden hydraulic problem. It's obviously a pity to miss out on a podium here for the second year in a row. But at least we showed better pace at times and we must now build on that. I still believe that the team is doing a good job and working really hard but there is still work to do."

Tsutomu Tomita -- Team Principal:

"We have to be pleased about getting a point from Ralf, who battled hard throughout the race. But to say we are disappointed about what happened to Jarno is an understatement. He had raced hard from the start in heavy traffic and for him to suffer a hydraulic problem so close to the flag was a cruel blow. So it was a bitter finish, but at least we can say that the team performed better over the course of the weekend."

"It was a correct decision to go for a one-stop strategy and it worked well. We will have to investigate our poor starts but at least our pace was good on the heavy tanks. We brought Ralf in earlier than we had to because he was stuck behind Heidfeld, who we expected so stay out longer. Unfortunately they both came in at the same time but it was the only thing we could try."

"Jarno similarly spent most of his race behind Barrichello so we can only congratulate the drivers on doing such a good job today. It was a bad day for us in terms of the race results but the gap to the top teams is closing and we will continue developing and fighting in order to achieve a podium as soon as possible."

Ralf Schumacher
Car 7, Chassis TF106/07B
Race Classification: 8th
Gap: +1 lap (from race winner)
Qualifying Classification: 11th
Time: 1m14.398s (+0.866s in Session 2)
Grid: 10th

Jarno Trulli
Car 8, Chassis TF106/08B
Race Classification: DNF
Qualifying Classification: 8th
Time: 1m15.857s (+1.959s in Session 3)
Grid: 6th

-toyota-

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Alonso wins Monaco GP thriller

Next article Moanco GP: Michelin race review

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

12 min

Final NASCAR Cup points standings after 2026 Homestead finale

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

44 min

Official race results: NASCAR Cup Homestead season finale

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Homestead-Miami

58 min

Ryan Blaney wins Homestead NASCAR Cup finale as Kyle Larson claims 2026 title

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

1 h

Winners and losers from F1's chaotic Brazilian Grand Prix

Feature

Discover prime content

How Lando Norris prevailed in a swift errors tour of Interlagos

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Stuart Codling

How Lando Norris prevailed in a swift errors tour of Interlagos

"He really wanted it" – why Russell was furious over aborted Brazil ‘pole’ lap

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Stuart Codling

"He really wanted it" – why Russell was furious over aborted Brazil ‘pole’ lap

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Brazilian GP

Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

By Jake Boxall-Legge

What we learned from Friday practice at the 2026 Brazilian GP

How F1’s rules got to be so complex

Formula 1

By Pat Symonds

How F1’s rules got to be so complex

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts