Toyota Boosted by Qualifying Showing

The Toyota team received a boost of confidence ahead of their home Japanese Grand Prix as their drivers completed their strongest qualifying performance of the year.

Toyota emulated their United States Grand Prix feat by putting a car in third position ahead of tomorrow's race. This time, however, it was Brazilian Cristiano da Matta who qualified ahead of teammate Olivier Panis, the Frenchman posting the fourth quickest time.

"I am obviously very pleased with our qualifying performance here in Suzuka today," said da Matta. "Third and fourth is really fantastic. I am not just pleased with the lap time, but also with the hard work that the whole team put in overnight to improve the car.

"Okay, we had help from the rain this afternoon, but even so, I believe we would still have been in the top eight. I am confident that we can be quite strong in our home race tomorrow. I am really looking forward to doing all we can to give the Toyota fans a good result."

Toyota are in the fight for fifth place in the Constructors' Championship, one point behind the Sauber team. Their qualifying performance put them in a strong position to jump ahead of the Swiss squad tomorrow.

Panis said today's result was "exceptional".

"This is a very positive result for the whole team and we have repeated our strong qualifying performance from the last race," said Panis. "Having both cars on the second row of the grid tomorrow at Toyota's home Grand Prix is exceptional, even if we finally had a bit of help from the weather.

"Despite this result, there is still some work to be done on my car. We still have to find out why I am missing some top speed down the straight in comparison to Cristiano's car. I think I will use the wet weather this afternoon to stay in and work on it with the team."