The Last Interview: Q & A with Mike Gascoyne
Several hours after the Australian Grand Prix, Mike Gascoyne was still technical director for the Toyota F1 team and he was still confident that he will lead the team to success in the 2006 season. Two days later, he found himself "suspended indefinitely" from his position. Adam Cooper happened to be the last journalist to interview Gascoyne as a Toyota man
A few hours after the end of the Australian Grand Prix, I went down to the Toyota garage in search of Mike Gascoyne. Open and forthright, he's always good value after a race, whatever the result. On this occasion, Ralf Schumacher's unexpected third place, a result that exceeded even Toyota's expectations, guaranteed some lively conversation, and he'd already had a few visitors.
The result appeared to have gone some way to making up for the disaster that was Bahrain. On that occasion, Toyota had struggled with the sort of tyre temperature problems that hit everyone else in Australia. Mike was certainly upbeat, and if there was some serious aggravation going on behind the scenes, he didn't show it.
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