Toyota 'shocked' by dismal showing

Toyota, with one of the biggest budgets of the grid, struggled for pace for most of the weekend and did not manage to escape the final positions during today's race.

Both Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher failed to show any competitiveness and finished down in 16th and 14th positions respectively, both over one lap down.

Tomita, whose team claimed prior to the start of the season they were aiming to win races this year, said the poor showing was a shock to the whole team.

"The first Grand Prix weekend of 2006 has been a shocking way to start the year - not only for the team but for the fans all over the world," said Tomita. "This afternoon our reliability was good and Ralf and Jarno used all their skill and spirit.

"But the car was unexpectedly slower than many of the other cars and we could do nothing to step up during the race. We put the drivers on different strategies - Ralf on three tops and Jarno on two. At one point Jarno was good enough to let Ralf through because he was on a different strategy and a lighter fuel load, which meant he finished ahead.

"But overall we have to treat the weekend as a test session and use it to analyse why we didn't get the expected performance level. It was a disappointing race and a disappointing weekend and certainly not what we expected coming here based on our performance in testing.

"The basic balance of the car was okay but we have just been struggling for grip all weekend. It seems we have lost the considerable performance advantage we have built up since the middle of last year so we have a lot of work to do to understand the reasons.

"This is a very frustrating atmosphere but I'm sure that we will make every effort to come back at the coming races."