Salo expects difficult weekend

Having scored points in two of its first three races, the team fell to earth with a bump at the San Marino Grand Prix two weeks ago. Salo was not surprised by the reality check.

"I expected us to find it harder in Europe, and that was proved at the last race," said the Finn. "The car didn't work over the bumps at Imola and, while we have a few modifications for Barcelona, I am expecting another difficult weekend. We are going to the track that all the teams know best, so any weaknesses are going to be exaggerated."

His team boss Ove Andersson agreed. "The last race at Imola was a reminder to everyone at Panasonic Toyota racing that we still have a long way to go before we can challenge regularly in the midfield," he said. "The most important thing for us at this stage is to finish the races and for sure we learnt more about the car at the recent Mugello test. Of course performance is important, but we must never sacrifice reliability."

Both Salo and McNish retired early in the race with transmission problems at Imola. McNish's failure happened as he tried to leave the grid at the start.