TOYOTA
--- TEAM INFO ---
TEAM PRINCIPAL - Tadashi Yamashina
TEAM COLOURS - White, Red
CAR - Toyota TF109
ENGINE SUPPLIER - Toyota
TYRES - Bridgestone
TECHINCAL DIRECTOR(S) - Pascal Vasselon
MAJOR SPONSORS - Toyota, Panasonic, Denso, KDDI, Esso
--- STATS ---
FIRST SEASON - 2002
GRANDS PRIX - 123
WORLD DRIVERS TITLES - 0
WORLD CONSTRUCTORS TITLES - 0
WINS - 0
POLE POSITIONS - 2
POINTS SCORED - 219
--- DRIVERS ---
9 - Jarno Trulli (Italy)
10 - Timo Glock (Germany)
TEST DRIVER - Kamui Kobayashi (Japan)
A reported $500million annual budget has so far only returned 8 podiums from a possible 246 results, not good enough for a major Japanese effort that aspires to dominate the sport one day, and now with the withdrawals of both Honda and Super Aguri, the team reperesnts the land of the rising sun's only chance of future F1 success and after a good improvement shown in 2008, they have decided to stick with their tried and tested lineup of the experienced Italian Jarno Trulli and the young German Timo Glock who between them managed 56 points last season, good enough for Toyota to return to the top 5 in the championship.
Jarno Trulli will begin his 13th season in F1 and also begin by celebrating his 200th Grand Prix start in Australia, but his career has been more solid than spectacular, he may only have scored 1 win but has averaged just over 1 point per start, partly down to poor years with Prost, Jordan and (at times) with Toyota too. One thing you can guarantee with Trulli though is consistent qualifying performances, he is renowned as a single lap specialist and when Qualifying consisted of just that, he was rarely out of the top 5 in qualifying. He has also proved that with the right car, he can deliver int he races too although his one and only win (Monaco 2004) was more down to a combination of luck and some excellent defensive driving.
Timo Glock has had a mixed career, this infact being his 2nd spell in F1 after his first stint with Jordan back in 2004 where he stood in on the odd occasion for Giorgio Pantano, in between he went to race Champ Cars in the USA before coming back to Europe to win the 2007 GP2 title, that earning him a chance with Toyota with which he has excelled, he managed to finish in the top 10 of the drivers standings with his standout performance being an excellent run to 2nd place in Hungary. So in his second season, lot more is expected from him.
Pre-season testing pace of the team's new car (the TF105) has gone well, the car itself features a narrow nose design with walrus-like front wings, not as dramatic as the design of the 2004 Williams but its a similar concept, overall they will be lookign to improve on last season's 5th place finish and challenge for their first race win after 7 years of trying, i dont think they will but another season with a top 5 finish will do them well.
2009 PREDICTION FOR TOYOTA
DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
Jarno Trulli - 10th
Timo Glock - 11th
CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP
5th
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