Text - Panasonic Toyota Racing: British Grand Prix - Second Qualifying Session

Panasonic Toyota Racing continued its good form at the Silverstone circuit today as Cristiano da Matta placed his TF103 in 6th place for tomorrow's British Grand Prix - his personal best qualifying after a ninth place in Canada. Olivier Panis set just the thirteenth fastest time in the session, as a result of big oversteer in the final sector of his flying lap, which lost the Frenchman almost one second.

Cristiano da Matta - Car Number 21, Chassis TF103/04 (T-Car) Session Classification: 6th Lap Time: 1m22.081s +0.872s from pole Starting Position: 11th "I think the effort was pretty good, given the circumstances. We had a problem with my race car during the warm-up, which meant that we got no running prior to the qualifying run and I had to switch to the back-up car. Consequently I had no knowledge of the track conditions with different wind and different temperatures, so I couldn't really tune the car for the session. Overall, I think the whole team has shown that we have a competitive package this weekend and to get my best ever qualifying result and a top-six grid position in the spare car is very pleasing. We are really in the hunt for points tomorrow."

Olivier Panis - Car Number 20, Chassis TF103/08
Session Classification: 13th
Lap Time: 1m23.042s +1.833s from pole
Starting position: 16th
"I had a big oversteer under braking in the last sector, which lost me a lot of time, but that happens occasionally when you are on the limit. I am not sure of the actual cause, so we need to go through the data to find out why this happened. Of course, I am not happy, but we have to remain focussed on making up positions in the race. We need to continue to push and aim for points - the car is certainly competitive enough. I want to say thanks to the team and well done to Cristiano for such a great lap today."

Keizo Takahashi - Car Design and Development
"Cristiano did a great job and we are pleased for him getting his best ever qualifying result. When Olivier took to the track for his qualifying lap, the track conditions had changed a little bit from the first half of the session. He lost a lot of time in the final sector, but we don't really know why. In general our car performance has been very good in Silverstone this weekend and we hope to continue in this direction for the race. We have a really chance to get some championship points tomorrow, hopefully with both cars."

Weather: Dry, warm with some cloud
T-Car: TF103/04 set up for Cristiano da Matta Spare Chassis: TF103/02

Friday practice (dry track)
Panis P5, 1m20.693s, 20 laps
Da Matta P10, 1m21.027s, 23 laps

Friday Qualifying (dry track)
Panis P5, 1m19.959s (+0.485s)
Da Matta P10, 1m20.765s (+1.291s)

Saturday practice 1 (dry track)
Panis P13, 1m24.484s, 14 laps
Da Matta P14, 1m24.532s, 15 laps

Saturday practice 2 (dry track)
Panis P5, 1m22.257s, 17 laps
Da Matta P10, 1m22.614s, 18 laps