Da Matta Still Unsure about New Toyota's Pace

Brazilian Cristiano da Matta says it's still too early to judge the pace of the new Toyota car introduced for this weekend's German Grand Prix.

The Japanese squad's heavily revised machine failed to stand out on its first appearance at a race weekend, with da Matta 18th and France's Olivier Panis 19th fastest in the second session.

Both men were outpaced by the team's test driver Ricardo Zonta, who drove the old TF104 to 10th place in the timesheets.

"We opted to do our tyre comparison work in the first of today's practice sessions, before turning our attention to setting up the new TF104B car," said da Matta. "As a result of this, we did not do any runs on new tyres in the second session, so the times are unrepresentative.

"Most of the updated aerodynamic parts have only been run for the first time today, so it is difficult to gauge our real performance. As the weekend progresses, we will obtain a much clearer indication of where we stand, but there is still a lot to be done tomorrow morning."