Toyota Encouraged by Salo's Performance

The Toyota team enjoyed an encouraging start to the Canadian Grand Prix after Finn Mika Salo set a promising sixth quickest time in today's practice session.

"Today was very constructive for our first time in Canada," said Ange Pasquali, Toyota's team manager, after the session. "The team worked well, we learned a lot and we have a clear idea in which direction to go tomorrow. Mika's time was quite encouraging."

35-year old Salo, who has given the Japanese squad their first two points in Formula One, was pleased with his car's handling considering it was Toyota's first visit to the Gilles Villeneuve track, but claimed there was still work to do to be competitive in tomorrow's qualifying.

"The car felt reasonable for our first day at the circuit," he said. "We still have some work to do, particularly on car set-up and gear ratios, but we will sit down and do our homework this afternoon in order to improve for tomorrow."

Scot Allan McNish was not so lucky, his TF102 car suffering an oil leak in the afternoon. McNish finished in a disappointing 20th position.

"We followed our programme making some changes in between sessions, which helped to improve the car," McNish said. "I had an oil leak in session two, which meant taking off the rear of the car and the engine. It was unfortunate because it is our first time in Montreal and track time is vital."