Panis Baffled by Lack of Speed

Frenchman Olivier Panis was unable to find an explanation for the lack of speed of his Toyota for most of the Monaco Grand Prix weekend.

Panis qualified in a disappointing 17th position for the Japanese outfit and continued to struggle in today's race, finishing in 13th place more than four laps behind race winner Juan Pablo Montoya.

The veteran Frenchman, a former winner in Monaco, said the team were not capable of finding a solution for the lack of grip he suffered all weekend.

"The result today was extremely disappointing for me and for the whole team," said Panis. "We couldn't find a cure to the grip level problem we have been suffering from all weekend, so we decided to run a different strategy, stopping just once in the race, but the car was really difficult to drive.

"There must have been something wrong, but we don't know what. We really need to improve a lot of things in order to get better."

Brazilian teammate Cristiano da Matta enjoyed a better race, although he too was unable to score any points for Toyota. The current CART champion finished in ninth position.

"Finishing ninth behind the top four teams is a reasonable result and I think this was all we had in the car today," said da Matta. "I didn't have any specific mechanical problems; just oversteer for most of the race and some lack of grip.

"Overall, things only started to come together for me from a driving point of view yesterday, and I think the team has done a good job. We need to work on our performance, but we are testing a lot and I am sure it's all going to come together soon."