McNish looks back - San Marino GP.

2002 Toyota F1 driver Allan McNish looks back on his debut year in the premier category and today looks at the San Marino Grand Prix.

"Immediately after the Brazilian Grand Prix I flew to Europe for test duties. By this time Toyota had the test team up and running so it was back to racking up the mileage and trying to both learn more about and improve the car.

"We headed to Imola in pretty good spirits. Our first three races had resulted in two points paying finishes for Mika and I was certainly on for points in Malaysia until my pit-stop. We were soon in for a major reality check!

"Formula One is far from easy and one minute you're up and the next you're down. Imola was to prove to be a fairly dismal weekend for us. The big kerbs and slow corners didn't suit the TF102 chassis and we realized there was a lot of work to be done to improve upon this situation.

Mika and I were only 3000ths of a second apart in qualifying but we were both at the wrong end of the grid! Little did I know things were to go from bad to worse for me.

"At the start of the race on Sunday I had a gearbox failure and failed to even get off the start line. Mika faired little better in the race and retired. It was the first time the team had failed to get both cars to the finish. It was a good test for the team as we all needed to respond to the events in Imola. We had come from the highs of the opening races where we were often in quite a strong position to the lows of failing to get both cars to the finish in San Marino.

"The team really showed its inner strength following that weekend with Ove leading the team and getting the issues sorted. Putting it bluntly we had to make the car quicker. More tests followed, this time concentrating on how the car performed on kerbs etc. We thought we had found the problem and ironed it out."

Tomorrow read about McNish's experiences in the Spanish Grand Prix, the fifth race of the season.

For more on Allan McNish go to his official website - www.allanmcnish.com