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Thursday, June 28, 2007

Toyota confident


Toyota Racing returns to Europe this weekend following its North American double-header, with the French Grand Prix at Magny-Cours. After Jarno Trulli scored his best result of the season with sixth place at Indianapolis last time out, the team is in a confident mood. After the North American races, Jarno and Ralf Schumacher spent time testing the TF107 at Silverstone last week and both drivers set fast laps during a trouble-free three days. The Magny Cours circuit in central France, which has hosted the French Grand Prix since 1991, sees a return to more standard aerodynamic set-ups and the team will benefit from several aero updates to the car. Last year's race saw strong performances from both Ralf and Jarno, with Ralf recording fourth place while a brake problem denied Jarno a podium finish. That gives the team encouragement ahead of the 2007 French Grand Prix and it will push hard to record more points as the first half of the season draws to a close.
"We have some updates on the car in terms of the aerodynamic package because we are now returning to a track which requires our baseline package," said chassis chief Pascal Vasselon. "Ever since Monaco we have been using special aero packages - Monaco because it is of course high downforce but also Canada and Indianapolis, which are closer to a low downforce package. In France we will return to a package closer to that which we used in Barcelona, although we have since developed it and there will be new aero parts this weekend. At Indianapolis we were comparatively not as strong in low downforce, low grip conditions as we had been in Barcelona so we are looking forward with optimism to returning to the package which we have focused most of our effort on. Jarno drove a great race in Indianapolis to get sixth and that clearly demonstrates that the car has the potential to fight at the front. We expect to close the gap on the group ahead of us and we are hopeful of another strong points-scoring performance in France."

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