Trulli hopeful of Toyota step forward

The Japanese squad have showed promising pace in recent races and they are introducing aerodynamic improvements for the Istanbul race.

"After the cold and wet conditions we saw in Budapest I'm glad to see it's hot and sunny here," said Trulli after posting the 15th fastest time in practice.

"That should be good for us because our car has always performed well in these conditions.

"Today showed that we still have work to do on set-up, but we have quite a few aerodynamic improvements this weekend so we expect to edge closer to the pace of the top teams.

"We have been steadily improving our performance so if we can stay reliable we can hope for a good finish."

Teammate Ralf Schumacher completed a promising start for Toyota by setting the fifth quickest time, and the German is also confident the team will enjoy a competitive weekend.

"Today we made it through our programme of tyre and set-up work as we hoped so that was a painless day," the German said.

"The car felt good today too so we should be reasonably happy with that. With this year's cars Turn 8 is a little easier than last year but it is still a very fast corner.

"We were competitive at the last few races before the August break and we have an improved aerodynamic package here so we hope to show a strong performance over the weekend."