Toyota laments poor showing

On a dismal day for the Japanese car giant, drivers Cristiano da Matta and Olivier Panis were both lapped twice by race winner Michael Schumacher of Ferrari, and finished in 12th and 13th places respectively.

"On a positive note, the reliability of the car was excellent and we got both cars to the finish," said Gascoyne. "Performance-wise, the race was very disappointing with both drivers suffering from a general lack of grip from the tyres. We experienced no particular problems with the balance of the car, just a lack of grip throughout the race.

"Cristiano stalled the car on his first pitstop, which lost him a couple of positions, but overall this weekend just shows the size of the task in front of us. We need to make the car quicker, however the programmes to do that have already been put in place, so I am sure we will achieve that during the course of the season. Looking ahead to Malaysia, we already have some aero improvements for that race and I am sure that the nature of the Sepang circuit and the higher track temperatures will mean we have a more competitive package than we had here in Australia."

Da Matta said: "It was a difficult race for us today. The car's performance was not good at all, but at least we are under no illusions now. We know where we are and we have to work really hard to make progress up the field. There are few positive things to take away from this first race of the season, but at least we showed that the car was reliable in the race and we will be able to benefit from that as the season goes on."

Panis added: "After our pre-season testing in Europe, I really expected us to be in a better position today. At least now we know where we stand in comparison to everybody else. We are far away from the top teams and there is a long road in front of us, but we are all determined to work harder than ever before."