Poor debut for new Toyota

Team chief Tsutomu Tomita looked on the bright side, although Panis (who caused a delayed start when he stalled on the grid) was only 14th and Cristiano da Matta crashed out with a high-speed blow-out.

"It was a problematic and extremely disappointing race result for Toyota today, but I think we can take a lot of positive things away after the first race weekend with our revised TF104B car," said Tomita. "We had the pace to score some points today, as we can see from setting the fourth fastest lap of the race. Unfortunately, our race was over at the beginning when Olivier stalled on the grid. He then lost a lot of time stuck behind backmarkers and was unable to make up enough positions."

Panis said: "I am very disappointed with the problem that I encountered at the start of the race when I stalled on the grid and was forced to start in last place. This year, between Cristiano and me, we have experienced this type of problem on different occasions. Sometimes, drivers make mistakes but because the problem has recurred, we should really check carefully to see if there is a related technical problem."

Da Matta added: "My retirement from today's grand prix was pretty sudden, although I had felt an increasing vibration in the rear of the car occasionally during the race. The right-rear tyre suddenly went, but it is difficult to know what caused it to blow until we study the data. My start was okay, but I soon got stuck in traffic which slowed me down quite a bit."

"On a positive note, the speed of the TF104B seemed quite good in race conditions, and generally I am encouraged by the weekend. I think I showed clearly that on full tanks, when I wasn't being held up that I could set some highly respectable lap times."