By Nick Sparkes
June 25 2005

Panasonic Toyota Racing are confident that Ralf Schumacher will make a full recovery in time for next weekends French Grand Prix. This comes after Ralf's 180mph crash at Turn 13 at the Indianapolis Speedway a week ago, which forced him to sit out the rest of the weekend after complaining of blurred vision.

Although Ralf was able to walk away from the accident, the FIA doctors instructed that he should sit out the race as a precaution. Ralf was also expected to take part in Toyota's Jerez test this week, but the team decided that the German driver should be given extra rest.

“Ralf has no lasting ill effects after his accident but we always make driver safety the priority,” said chief test engineer Gerd Pfeiffer.

“The team’s medical staff decided that the sensible thing to do was to maximise Ralf’s recovery time before Magny-Cours, where he will return to the cockpit alongside Jarno [Trulli].”

Elsewhere ex-Toyota driver Mika Salo fears for the long-time health of fellow Formula One drivers after finding carbon-fibre dust in his lungs.

"There was really a lot of that dust in my lungs," Salo said.

"If I have this much of it, how much will Michael Schumacher, who has driven 10 years longer than me, have?"

Salo retired from the sport after being dumped by Toyota at the end of the 2002 season.