Jarno Trulli was full of praise for his
Toyota team following Sunday's French Grand Prix, when he produced a sublime performance to mount the bottom step of the rostrum – and get his revenge for what happened in the same race four years ago…
The Italian has been in fine form in general throughout the 2008
Formula 1 campaign, only once missing out on qualifying inside the top ten – until Montreal one of just five drivers to hold such an honour – and finishing five of the season's opening eight grands prix in the points to place himself as ‘best of the rest' behind the drivers from the acknowledged top three teams in seventh position in the championship standings.
The indisputable highlight to-date, however, came in mid-France last weekend, as Trulli pulled one of his habitually excellent qualifying laps out of the bag to line up fourth on the grid, before going on to demonstrate strong race pace too and expertly hold off determined challenges from both McLaren-Mercedes'
Heikki Kovalainen and erstwhile world championship leader
Robert Kubica in the BMW-Sauber to cross the finish line in a supremely well-deserved third place.
“You know, in Formula 1 nowadays unfortunately you have to get everything completely right,” he reflected afterwards, “every single detail, especially for us. It's so important in order to finish as high as possible, especially in our position because we're fighting in the midfield. We know that
Ferrari,
McLaren,
BMW are sometimes… are often quicker than us, but sometimes we can close the gap.
“It was a great race, hard and tough, but it was a great result and a great weekend for the whole team. We had quite good pace; obviously some other cars were still quicker than us, but we managed to have a very good weekend from Friday and Saturday qualifying. We had a very good start and my pace was obviously reasonable, but I had to fight really hard which is anyway what we expected.
