Toyota Encouraged after Strong Start

"It's great to have Ricardo back on top of the timesheets," said chief race engineer Dieter Gass.

"We were a bit surprised by the lap because it was not on a brand new tyre, so that was very good."

Toyota and test driver Zonta achieved the fastest lap after the first day of practice after the Brazilian shot to the top of the times with a flying lap late in the second session.

Italian Jarno Trulli completed Toyota's promising start with the ninth quickest time, while teammate Ralf Schumacher was down in 16th place.

"It was a difficult day today to get everything sorted for tyre choice, because there was a lot of traffic, so we really have to analyse the data to understand the behaviour," added Gass.
 
"There's still some work to do on the car balance, but that was a trouble-free day and our performance looks promising."