Trulli encouraged despite no points

The Italian, starting from sixth place on the grid, was forced to retire from the race when his car's battery exploded during his first pitstop, making his seat too hot.

Trulli was running strongly in the points when he retired, and although the result left him disappointed, he admitted he was happy with Toyota's form.

"From early on in the race the battery was too hot," said Trulli. "Then when I stopped in the pits it just gave up. That is a pity because the car felt good and I was doing pretty well. I was running comfortably in the points so it is unfortunate to lose out on a scoring start to the year.

"Still, the car is better than last year's and there is performance to come. Here we didn't look too strong because we didn't work the tyres perfectly but even so we could have had a good result. So I'm sure we can fight well this year and I hope to be stronger in Malaysia."

Timo Glock completed a poor day for the team after crashing heavily when he went off the track with 14 laps to go.

The German escaped uninjured, but he admitted it was far from a perfect return to Grand Prix action.

"That was a hard way to return to racing in F1," said Glock. "Given our starting position this was always going to be a difficult afternoon's work. I had contact with two other cars at the start but despite our heavy fuel load we were able to make up some ground in the early part of the race.

"Still, the car felt a bit strange in terms of understeer and that's what we have to work on to improve the car. After the pitstop it was hard work to drive and my race ended with the crash. I feel fine but I'm disappointed and we will hope for better fortunes next week."