Toyota has emerged as shock contenders for F1 podiums this season after another impressive pre-season test.
Team leader Olivier Panis set the fastest time at the last test of the winter in Barcelona outpacing the 2003 cars of Renault, Jordan, BAR and most notably Williams. With a time of 1m15.508secs Panis was over four tenths of second faster than nearest rival Fernando Alonso but the Frenchman was quick to play down his chances.
"It looks pretty good for a new team, but the last thing I want is the team to be distracted by the apparent speed of the car", he said after the Barcelona test.
Despite his positive attitude towards the new Toyota racer, Panis took time to point out that the rule changes for 2003 are likely to undermine any testing pace shown by the Japanese team.
"It is a good chassis, good engine and the tyres are good - but this year there will be a lot less time to set-up the cars and there is a lot involved in strategy for qualifying and the race. In all these things experience counts", said Panis.
The test in Barcelona was yet another painful experience for the BMW Williams team. Ralf Schumacher, the fastest of the Williams drivers testing was still 1.2 seconds off the blistering pace set by Panis and the German effectively wrote off his team's chances in the early rounds of the championship.
"We've worked like mad but everyone knows that we have a huge amount to do. At the moment the new car is as quick as the old one, perhaps a tad faster, but that is not good enough," said Schumacher to a German newspaper
"...we might as well forget any thoughts of winning the first couple of races. We lack too much to aim for a win", concluded Schumacher.
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