Australian GP: Race results and Notes

Congratuliations for Ralf with his first podium finish of the year!

Panasonic Toyota Racing took a dream podium after a dramatic Australian Grand Prix. Both Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli qualified in the top ten but they endured mixed fortunes in an incident-strewn race. Ralf raced strongly near the front early on before losing time for a drive-through penalty. But he made the most of a series of safety car restarts on his way to an eventual six points for 3rd place. Jarno's afternoon was much shorter as he was taken out of the race on the very first lap.

Trulli was overtaking David Coulthard when the pair clashed, breaking the Toyota's rear suspension. Ralf's podium means that Toyota will return to Europe with hopes of a continued challenge during the coming races. The team is scheduled to test at France's Paul Ricard circuit next week as it bids to make further steps forward.

Ralf Schumacher raced strongly throughout today's incident-packed race gaining several places before taking 3rd place.

Ralf Schumacher: "We are all very happy with what we achieved today. The drive through penalty was my fault because I accidentally hit the button twice but I was lucky and due to the safety car periods we achieved a lot more than we ever thought before this weekend." "At the start we were sliding around and locking wheels. But while we've had problems with warming up our tyres in earlier races, others seemed to struggle with that today. Some of the safety car periods were a bit of a fight with all the backmarkers in there but after the third safety car period I gained a couple of places which was great."

"Grip was hard to come by so I really had to fight the whole race to keep the car there, but it worked out in the end and we achieved a great result. We are still a way from the top teams so we have to work, but I have no doubt that our crew is able to do that. We're strong people and pushing hard so I'm looking forward to the next few races."

The Panasonic Toyota Racing team is delighted to have come away from Australia with its first podium finish of 2006. John Howett - President, Toyota Motorsport: "That was an incredibly exciting and eventful race and it was a suberb job by Ralf and the whole team especially when you consider the difficult start to the year. It was unlucky for Jarno. He was passed by Coulthard at the first corner but then he made a clean pass back and Coulthard just turned in on him." "So that was a shame, but with Ralf we could run reasonably competitively. The tyres were very good, too. Everyone struggled after the safety car periods here but Bridgestone have helped us to get on top of the problem of getting heat into the tyres and that paid off. When Ralf got the drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, we thought we'd thrown away a podium chance."

"We were a bit lucky with the number of incidents but for all the safety cars we managed to get the strategy right, and it was excellent team work from the boys as always. Ralf drove aggressively on the restarts and we were able to pick up places, which was fantastic. This is a well deserved shot of adrenaline to the whole team who have worked so hard over the winter."

Race results

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Points
1	F. Alonso	Renault	1:34:27.870	10
2	K. Raikkonen	McLaren	+ 1.829	8
3	R. Schumacher	Toyota	+ 24.824	6
4	N. Heidfeld	BMW	+ 31.032	5
5	G. Fisichella	Renault	+ 38.421	4
6	J. Villenueve	BMW	+ 49.554	3
7	R. Barrichello	Honda	+ 51.904	2
8	D. Coulthard	Red Bull	+ 53.983	1
9	S. Speed	Toro Rosso	+ 53.817 *	Penalty
10	J. Button	Honda	+ 1 laps	0
11	C. Albers	Midland F1	+ 0 laps	0
12	T. Sato	Super Aguni	+ 0 laps	0
13	Y. Ide	Super Aguni	+ 0 laps	0
Did not finish
14	J. P. Montoya	McLaren	+ 11 laps	0
15	T. Monteiro	Midland F1	+ 17 laps	0
16	V. Luzzi	Toro Rosso	+ 20 laps	0
17	M. Schumacher	Ferrari	+ 25 laps	0
18	M. Webber	Williams	+ 34 laps	0
19	C. Klien	Red Bull	+ 53 laps	0
20	J. Trulli	Toyota	+ 57 laps	0
21	N. Rosberg	Williams	+ 57 laps	0
22	F. Massa	Ferrari	+ 57 laps	0