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Toyota still hoping for a F1 Racing Circuit
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Posted on
Mar 07 2007 4:11 AM
by
irtaza
Five years have passed since Toyota entered Formula One and despite promising success at the beginning of last season, the Japanese carmaker is still waiting for its first grand prix victory.
Not surprisingly the F1 team has rung the changes since its entry into the sport in 2002, with seven of the Cologne based squad's eight top management members now Japanese. The only non-Japanese face is British president John Howett.
Tsutomu Tomita has been team principal since 2004 after taking over from Swede Ove Andersson. Technical director Mike Gascoyne left last year and that move was followed by the appointment of Tadashi Yamashina as vice president of Toyota Motorsport.
Toyota's best race result since its F1 entry is second place. The team came fourth in the 2005 constructors' standings but managed only sixth in 2006 with just one podium from Ralf Schumacher in the opening race in Australia.
The unchanged lineup of Schumacher and Italian driver Jarno Trulli will drive the TF107 car in the 2007 season which starts on March 18 in Australia.
The TF107 car has been produced by a group led by director of technical coordination Noritoshi Arai, and it is hoped its performances on the track will make up for 2006 which Tomita described as "a really disappointing year."
Schumacher certainly feels Toyota deserve to break their 87-race duck, considering the amount of time, money and effort the carmaker has invested its F1 project.
"I want to want to win my first race for Toyota because the team deserves success for the hard work it's putting in," said the 31- year-old German.
Schumacher's best finish in 38 races with Toyota was that podium finish in Australia and he feels the TF107 still has some way to go before it can deliver for Toyota.
"The first impression was good but second wasn't," he said after testing in Bahrain last week.
Both Trulli and Schumacher were plagued by reliability problems in Bahrain.
"We have one more test before the start of the season so hopefully we can make improvements," said Trulli.
"There are some issues that we need to fix but obviously that is what testing is for and I remain confident."
However, it seems unlikely that Toyota will be in a position in 2007 to bridge the gap to the big three of McLaren-Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault while BMW-Sauber also appear to be ahead.
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