Japanese GP - Toyota - RaceToyota started the 67-lap Japanese Grand Prix looking to close down the gap to rivals Renault in the fight for fourth position in the championship. With
Fernando Alonso taking the victory and Nelson Piquet finishing fourth, the Japanese-owned
team lost further ground as
Jarno Trulli finished in fifth position and Timo Glock failed to go the distance. Heading to China next weekend, Toyota are fifth in the championship standings, 16 points behind Renault.
Jarno Trulli "We have to be happy with that today but honestly I wanted to give a bit more both to the team and to all the Japanese fans who cheered us on. I was really hoping that we could make the podium but this 5th place was all that we could have done this afternoon. I gave everything from start to finish but we could not do any better today. We've been competitive all weekend and the car was good again in the race but the lower temperatures didn't help us. That meant that the car was slightly unbalanced. I tried to keep Piquet's Renault behind me but they were very quick today. Still, I'm glad to come away with some points to give the home support something to cheer."
Timo Glock
"That was a short afternoon's work for me. I made a good start but I lost ground when everyone went wide at the first corner and I was pushed off the track. Then following David Coulthard's accident it felt like I drove over some of the debris.
After that the car felt strange and in the end I lost the car on the kerb at the exit of turn six. I went over the grass and the car launched through the air. When I landed it felt like something broke on the rear, causing us to retire. It's a particular pity because we had a lot of fuel, we looked strong all weekend and we were confident of picking up a good result in front of our home fans."
Tadashi Yamashina, Team Principal
"Jarno did a very good job today, as did the whole team in our home country. We were expecting both cars to finish in the top six, but unfortunately Timo retired early on. When he went off, the shock on the monocoque caused the seat fixation to work loose. We tried to keep him in the race but there was no way to recover from that, which was a shame. Today we had lots of Toyota fans who had come here to watch and encourage our team. I appreciate that and thank them all very much."
