By Naomi Willemsen
April 7 2007

After a long time of testing is was finally time for the first Grand Prix of the 2007 season in Australia. The Panasonic Toyota team started their season in a decent way with Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli finishing 8th and 9th respectively.

As we’ve seen during the winter, Toyota’s testing did not go how it was supposed to. Also during the wet free practices they just couldn’t really break through. That all changed quickly during the qualification; Jarno drove 8th time as Ralf got 9th.

The race already started with some tension as smoke came out of Trulli’s car after leaving the grid. Fortunately it didn’t have any visible consequences for his race. Ralf made a good start as he overtook his team-mate in the first corner. It didn’t go that well for Trulli as he lost two places for some time before overtaking Takuma Sato again. Ferrari’s Kimi Räikkönen made good start and was able to drive away from Lewis Hamilton, Nick Heidfeld and Fernando Alonso. We aren’t even four laps away from the start and the first collision takes place between rookie Adrian Sutil and Anthony Davidson.

Both Ralf and Jarno were still driving 8th and 9th place while Felipe Massa, Renault-driver Kovalainen and Barrichello were stuck behind, a few seconds slower, Jenson Button. Nick Heidfeld was the first to make a pit stop in this season, as Christian Albers was the first man to retire after missing his braking point going into the third corner. Race leader Kimi Räikkönen enters the pits in round 18 and rejoins in 4th place when Rubens Barrichello manages to overtake his team-mate Button. After Fisichella rejoins the race from a pit stop he duels with Trulli for 8th place and wins by forcing him to have a trip over the grass.

Adrian Sutil was distracted and blocks Hamilton, which resulted into a drive-through penalty for the rookie. But that wasn’t the only time he got a drive-through penalty as he then drives over the white line coming out of the pit lane. Jarno was having a strange moment causing him to fall back to 14th place, but manages to pass Alexander Wurz for the 13th place and comes up to 11th due to pit stops from Rosberg and Kovalainen. After 30 laps Ralf races on 8th place with Jarno still on 11th. Button gets a drive-through penalty because of speeding it the pit lane and Scott Speed retires from his race caused by a double puncture.

Nico Rosberg overtakes Ralf Schumacher after chasing him quite some time. He falls back to the 8th place, which still means one point. But it wouldn’t take long and Ralf got his 7th places back as BMW’s Robert Kubica retires from the race due to his gearbox being stuck in 5th gear. Also Rosberg had to go and pit which put Ralf in 6th place, but it didn’t take long as Ralf himself had to go for a pit stop himself. He rejoined in 10th place with Kimi leading the race again after pit stops from Hamilton and Alonso, who rejoined behind the race leader.

The quiet period was soon over as Coulthard made an over-enthusiastic move on Williams-driver Wurz. He entered the corner with great speed and drove into and over Alexander Wurz which resulted in a DNF for both drivers. The race is coming to an end when Ralf and Jarno are in 8th and 9th place with Heikki Kovalainen trying to chase Jarno into a mistake. He fortunately was able to hold the Renault-driver behind him until the end. For the first time in one year Kimi Räikkönen was able to win a race again. Followed by Alonso, Hamilton, Heidfeld, Fisichella, Massa, Rosberg, Ralf and Jarno.

With having scored one point it was a decent race-weekend for Toyota compared to how they looked during the winter testing and free practices. Now it’s time to improve from this point to a better season. In 18 days from now Toyota will be Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where the second Grand Prix of the year will be held.