Friday: Toyota begins its weekend smoothly

First day overall positive for the Toyota team, which has just participated in the first practice sessions of the Singapore Grand Prix. The times are not exceptional either, as both drivers generally secured times flirting around the 15th position, except for Timo Glock, who tonight achieved a commendable 8th place.

Beyond the positions, the Japanese team introduced deep upgrades to their cars, the TF109s. It is a satisfaction since there are no longer tests between races to pre-test these changes.

Jarno Trulli – 16th and 13th:

« It was two normal practice sessions for a Friday where I worked to assess the tires and the setup. We still need to improve the setup because the car wasn’t perfect. There was very little grip on the track, especially during the first session when the surface was very dusty. This made the situation difficult and I had some oversteers. But conditions will improve as the weekend progresses and we need to make changes to get the most out of our car here. We will study all the information and try to make the right adjustments. »

Timo Glock – 15th and 8th:

« I am rather happy with how things turned out today. The first practice session was a bit difficult because analyzing the car was complicated. I don’t think the track conditions helped us. The car wasn’t necessarily bad, but the lap time wasn’t great. But in the second session, it was generally better. The car was more understandable, the track conditions improved a lot, and we ran according to our program. I am quite satisfied with the car for now, but obviously, we want to achieve much better performances before the qualifying and the race. We need to analyze our data to make some changes and know which direction to take.

Dieter Gass – Chief Race and Test Engineer:

Overall, it was a positive day for us. As usual on a street circuit, and as was the case last year, track conditions evolved significantly during both sessions and this will continue throughout the rest of the weekend. Everything went well with our upgraded package, which is always good, especially considering there are no on-track tests. We put the updates on the car for the first time today and everything worked perfectly. This is a credit to everyone who worked hard on this. Obviously, with a new series, you have even more data to study, and you need to look very carefully at the next steps before qualifying. So we still have a lot of work to do, but I am optimistic for this weekend.