Mike Gascoyne Q&A

A lot was expected from Toyota this season, not least because the team finished 2003 by qualifying on the second row at both Indianapolis and Suzuka. The arrival of Mike Gascoyne as technical director was seen by many as the final piece of the puzzle. However it hasn't been a great start to the season for the Japanese giant, and the team seems to have taken a step back, certainly as far as the Michelin class is concerned. Having said that, reliability has been good in the two races so far, and Cristiano da Matta was not disgraced at Sepang on the way to ninth place. Gascoyne has only been in Cologne for a few months and has just begun the process of reshaping the team, but nevertheless he's the man in the spotlight. Adam Cooper spoke to the Brit

"I think 10th in qualifying wasn't bad for Cristiano. I think that was about the time we thought he could do. Given the weekend he'd had he did well to qualify there, while Olivier had a problem. Then for the race they both made good starts. They were eighth and 11th through the first sector, and then both lost it through Turn 4, which meant we spent the race getting past the people they were quicker than."

"Yes, they both lost it in Turn 4, and I think it was slippery there anyway. Cristiano said he was trying to around the outside of Ralf, and he just lost it on the outside. That meant we got stuck behind first Heidfeld, then Klien, and Fisichella. Then we pulled the second stop forward, and jumped in front of them. But we weren't quick enough to catch up Massa. If we'd been in front of him we would have held him off, and picked up a point."

"It was disappointing to have a communication problem, because it would have been good to have two in the top 10. Basically what happened was that after the last stops we decided to cut the engine revs down to look after the engine. There was a radio problem, and he thought we were calling him about a problem with the engine, so he came in the pits. We told him to go straight through, and he then lifted off the limiter button early, so he got a pitlane speeding penalty, and had to come in again! It's a shame because even ninth and 10th after Melbourne would have been something."

"They're meant to be racing! I think it was a solid performance, and certainly we can race with Sauber and Jaguar. We've got to look to beat them for sixth place in the championship, while doing the all the things that are necessary to get us where we want to be."

"Reliability wise, we were very pleased, and certainly it was a much more competitive weekend. It was a step forward from Melbourne, undoubtedly."

"Yes. We had a new front wing and turning vanes. For Bahrain we don't particularly have anything new, but there will be quite a lot of updates for Imola, so hopefully we'll keep moving forward. As you know, it takes time, and if you do it right you've got to do all that work first, and then it will come through, as Renault have demonstrated. So we're doing all that work now."

"There's nowhere to hide, but we know exactly the targets we've got to achieve, and we've got the resources to do it. And now we've got the know-how."