After a promising start to the F1 season, both Toyota cars failed to finish the San Marino Grand Prix. But, as team boss Ove Andersson explains, everything could not keep going right forever.
After a promising start to the F1 season, both Toyota cars failed to finish the San Marino Grand Prix. But, as team boss Ove Andersson explains, everything could not keep going right forever.
"Obviously we are disappointed but we have to face reality,” Andersson said on Tuesday. “We have been quite lucky up to now, and the retirements are part of our learning curve. We now have to investigate the cause of the problems and then look forward to our next test in Mugello and the next race in Barcelona."
Mechanical problems prevented the Panasonic Toyota Racing team from seeing the chequered flag for the first time this season. Practice showed that the combination of the TF102 chassis and Michelin tyres was much better suited to dry conditions than a wet track.
On race day, the fledgling team did not need to contend with rainy conditions, but Allan McNish did not get a chance to capitalise on a promising qualifying performance which saw him line-up just 0.003s behind team-mate Mika Salo.
At the start, his car went nowhere.
"As soon as the lights went off I lost drive for some reason and I was fortunate that nobody hit me up the back," McNish said. "I had no choice but to pull off at the side of the track. But we’ve had fantastic reliability right from the start of the project back in 2001, and so, in reality, I think we are certainly above average on that score, no question about it. It’s just unfortunate that the problem happened right at the start and robbed me of any chance to race”.
Mika Salo’s traction control system malfunctioned early in the race and his car lost fourth gear just after his pit stop on lap 26.
"We had some handling problems here and we needed more grip. The Michelins are very good, but we need to make our car work more efficiently on them,” Salo said. “It’s my first retirement this year and my first mechanical problem. I was having a difficult time because at Imola you need to use all of the kerbs to achieve a good lap time, and our car could not ride the kerbs well this weekend."
“The Michelin tyres have been good, but our car has not been making the most of them. We now test in Mugello where we have lots to do," he added.
Perhaps Toyota was not the only team to have difficulty with Michelin tyres. Michelin-shod teams Williams-BMW and McLaren-Mercedes both struggled to match the Ferraris of Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello, which are racing on Bridgestone rubber.
Therefore it was hardly surprising that Imola 2002 was one of the worst days that Michelin competitions boss Pierre Dupasquier could remember since the French company returned to the F1 arena last year.
"I’m at a loss to explain it," Dupasquier said. "Our cars performed exactly as we expected them to, it’s just that the Ferraris found a lot of extra speed from somewhere."
