Trulli: Toyota closer to solving problems

Although the team were left baffled at the Bahrain Grand Prix about why their TF106 chassis was unable to generate any heat into its Bridgestone tyres, Trulli is confident that the outfit are now getting a grip on the situation.

"We understand what the problem is," said the Italian, who was 11th fastest in second practice in Malaysia. "We have more temperature in the tyres and the car is working better here.

"So we have certainly pinpointed our issue. We just need to make the tyre work better on our car."

Despite feeling slightly more confident about the situation, Trulli still believes Toyota are going to face a difficult campaign - and that they can pretty much forget about winning races.

"It would have been nice to fight for the championship after the progress last year," he explained. "But now we have a another challenge ahead: to solve the problem and prove to everybody that it is not as bad as people think.

"Last year we started the season with lower expectations and we ended up being more satisfied and more successful than we thought. This year expectations were much higher. But we came to Bahrain and found something wrong.

"Nevertheless, the motivation doesn't change. You always have to push, to prove you are a good driver and a good team working together in the right direction. Sometimes problems come and you have to push harder."

He added: "It was a big shock to us all. But we never had the real feeling in testing that it worked well on the tyre. We were expecting in warmer conditions to have a better solution, and it didn't happen in Bahrain. That was our shock.

"From our place [at the moment] we will probably not be able to win a race."