Trulli sure Toyota will beat Renault

Toyota held a 10-point advantage over Renault after the European Grand Prix, but the Japanese squad have failed to score in the last two races in Belgium and Italy.

In contrast, Renault's Fernando Alonso has finished fourth in both races and the French team are now tied on points with Toyota with four races left.

Trulli, however, is optimistic Toyota can still beat Renault.

"Definitely we can finish fourth and we have shown that already this season with a lot of very strong performances," said Trulli. "We have been on the podium twice on merit this year and a couple of races ago we had a 10-point cushion, which I think was a fair reflection on our competitiveness.

"But we were unfortunate in Spa and Monza - two races where we expected to be a little less competitive than usual - and now we have the same points as Renault.

"It is going to be a really exciting battle because it is so competitive at the moment. Small things can change the situation completely but I am confident we can beat Renault because I think the last two races did not reflect our true pace.

"We will be doing everything we can to fight for more podiums and finish fourth in the championship."

Trulli believes his point-less race at Monza was just a consequence of bad luck with the weather, but the Italian feels they were set for a strong result.

"It was disappointing but I think it was down to bad luck," he said. "We were unfortunate that the strategy didn't work out in those conditions - you cannot control the way the track or the weather develop throughout the race.

"We felt we had a strong strategy because we were on a one stop but unfortunately the switchover point from extreme wets to standard wets came a few laps after my only pitstop.

"It was not possible to put the standard wets on at my planned stop given the track conditions so we had to make an extra pit stop later in the race. If it had rained more heavily again in the middle of the race, as the forecasts were predicting, we would have been looking very good."