Jarno coulda been a contender, claims Gascoyne.

Toyota technical director Mike Gascoyne reckons that Jarno Trulli would have joined Ralf Schumacher in the top six on the grid in Australia had he not suffered a gearbox problem.

The Italian lost sixth gear at the end of the second session, having already made it through to the top ten and the team thus found itself in a similar situation to Malaysia, where Ralf Schumacher made it through, but could not take part after blowing his engine.

Ralf qualified sixth in Australia and, against all expectations, is the leading Bridgestone runner on the grid. Toyota is believed to have the softest tyre the Japanese company has available this weekend, following a successful recent test at Paul Ricard.

"Sixth is a good result, in that we've been saying that's where we feel the car can be, and it's good to have done it," Gascoyne told Crash.net, "In some respects, it's disappointing, because Jarno had a gearbox problem and couldn't take part. He lost sixth gear due to an electronics problem. We could have gone out and skipped the gear, but there was no point.

"It's a shame, because he could have been first or second in Q2, and the rain came down. We could have had both cars in the top six in the end, which would have been good. We have to thank Bridgestone, because they've brought something along that's really helped us, and it's nice to then go and show where the car can run."

When the decision not to go out was taken, Trulli's car had already been refuelled for its qualifying attempt. However, knowing that he was now guaranteed to start at the back of the top ten, the team changed strategy and opted for a longer first stint by nominating to the FIA how much extra fuel will go in the car on Sunday morning. In fact, Toyota have requested another 20kgs, enough to run around seven laps further than originally planned.

"If you don't go out, you can just refuel for wherever you want to be," Gascoyne explained, "But no-one knows what's in there at the moment, because we had refuelled it already."

Gascoyne suspects that, of the cars ahead of Schumacher, the one which might be lighter than the others is the Honda of pole winner Jenson Button.

"Button looked very quick, relatively quicker than in other sessions, so I think he will be quite light," he reasoned, "I think Renault and McLaren will be reasonably heavy, and us and Williams will be in the middle somewhere."