By Nick Sparkes
July 2 2005

Panasonic Toyota Racing headed the top 10 in each session for the up and coming French Grand Prix. This was helped with the return of F1 veteran Olivier Panis who for this weekend only, took over Friday duties from Ricardo Zonta.

Friday was warm and sunny, and Olivier Panis and Ralf Schumacher got straight to work rounding out the first session in seventh and ninth respectively. Jarno Trulli spent the session in the garage preserving his engine for Sunday’s race. The next session saw an almost repeat performance with Panis going sixth fastest, Jarno eighth and Ralf rounding out the Toyota top ten with ninth. This would prove to be a very encouraging session for everyone in the Panasonic Toyota Racing camp with the team expecting a return to the podium.

 

Jarno wasn’t that surprised to be so high up on the time sheets: “That was a normal Friday, with tyre testing and set-up work, but it’s still too early to say how we can perform over the weekend. The car seems reasonable in terms of handling, now we can perhaps look at the data to try and find a bit more speed. It was also fun to have Olivier here for this one-off Friday in front of his home crowd.”

 

Whilst Ralf Schumacher was confident of some points: “The weather can always be a major factor here at Magny-Cours, so we’ll have to see what it does over the weekend. But a good solid points finish should be within our grasp again.”

Yet Olivier Panis was delighted to have given his home crowd something to shout about: “I’m very happy to return to the track for Friday testing at the French Grand Prix. I enjoyed myself a lot, having a bit of fun with my former colleagues. I did the job that the team asked me to do without any problems, including the long runs, and it was fantastic out there. The team looks pretty good compared with last year, too. I can feel improvements in the way the team works, with everyone extremely calm and productive, and I’d like to thank them for giving me this chance today. Now I’ll go back my job as test driver for the programme I have for the coming months.”

Saturday awoke with a wet track, which saw limited running in the first of the two sessions. Jarno and Ralf completed a couple of installation laps yet set no time. But in the next and final session like in a couple during this session, Ralf Schumacher took his Toyota to second place overall with Jarno Trulli just over half a second behind him in tenth. The two Toyotas therefore enter this afternoons qualifying session in a very strong position although Ralf will be out first because he didn’t qualify or race at the last Grand Prix.