By Site Staff
January 15 2003

Toyota continued their pre season test programme today on day 2 of the 3 day test at Barcelona. Cristiano da Matta continued his familiarisation with the team, whilst Olivier Panis started to find the niggling problems with the new car. In total both men completed 128 laps, with da Matta taking the lions share in the interim TF102B. "Overall I am extremely pleased with the work we have done today," he said after the session to Toyota-F1.com . "I have had a much more productive session, probably one of the most effective I had with the team so far. We did some work on mechanical car set-up, as well as some Michelin tyre testing. It feels good to cover so many kilometres, even in the TF102B, to get a real feel for the car and to get to know the track."

Olivier Panis had a problematical day as the shakedown runs in the new TF103 started to show up some early issues. Nevertheless, the Frenchman was still able to record the 5th fastest time of the day out of the 9 drivers present. "The car continued to show a very promising level of performance but we encountered various problems, which shortened our on-track time," Panis commented this afternoon. "We could not complete as many laps as we expected today and, in that respect, I am not so happy. I am not worried by these difficulties though, they are typical from the first tests you do with a new car and we are effectively carrying out a sort of large shakedown. Everything should be fine for tomorrow."

Panis and da Matta wrap up this test for Toyota tomorrow, with both men in the same chassis as today.