Friday, August 05, 2005 7:45 PM
Die-hard Toyota fan from the Philippines TF102 returns to the scene with thoughts on the recent grands prix he missed reporting on, and a lot more.
Well, congratulations on Toyota’s recent solid return to form, and of course Ralf Schumacher’s first podium finish as a Toyota driver.
Thanks, and indeed it is refreshing, reinvigorating to have this kind of results once again. As I said it’s a good send-off for the three week summer break.
Speaking of breaks, you yourself have been on a long break. What happened?
Well yes, I have been a lazy fan. No, let me take that back. I’ve been a lazy writer but my support for the team never disappeared. I guess it all started when Karl Kinger, who manages Totally Toyota F1, offered column space for my interviews. First of all I felt honored and it just feels great to know that people appreciate my work. And then I was overwhelmed, like it was too much for me.
Why would you consider a column space too much for you? You have been sharing your F1 thoughts even before that.
Yes, but a dedicated TF102 space would be a lot of responsibilities. I had some concerns, on top of these is the fact that I just write whenever I can, or sometimes want. And I think more importantly, I was afraid that a lot of people would disagree with my more subjective approach to writing or evaluating the team, drivers, etc.
But isn’t it supposed to be sort of an opinion column, hence you’re more or less free to be as subjective as you want.
For sure, but let me reiterate that though I have come to more greatly appreciate our drivers Jarno and Ralf, I am first and foremost a Toyota supporter. There is a clear distinction there – there are those who support a certain driver, there are those who support the team, and then there also those who support F1 altogether. I’m afraid I might not please everyone. I thought I wasn’t prepared as yet to be put on the spotlight, should I end up with opinions not entirely in line with the majority’s. But here I am, so…
Ok, fair enough. So why did it take so long?
Once I stopped for a while, for Canada and Indy, I just spiraled into a deeper level of laziness, so to speak. And of course, I must admit that the lack of good results made it difficult for me to come up with reports. After the Indy fiasco, I missed France, Silverstone, and Hockenheim.
So including Hungary, you owe us five grands prix. What do you have to say for yourself now?
I think I just told you a lot of things. I pretty much explained already.
How about an apology?
Do I have to? Ok then, my apologies for the long delay. But I have some juicy stories to share. I will no longer devote much space for evaluating the team’s performance in the previous races. We all pretty much know about those already.
But how would you assess the team’s overall performance in those five grands prix?
I think we stagnated a little, and that is pretty much equal to taking a step back, a little one. But small mistakes, small unluck or misfortunes projected a more significant drop in competitiveness. Race pace turned out to be more and more “questionable” to put it nicely. I think it goes as far back as Nurburgring when Jarno suffered a lot from his drive-through penalty, when in comparison David Coulthard recovered nicely to still finish fourth.
Those were frustrating, and embarrassing times. When else was race pace the culprit and when was it just pure unluck?
Actually I don’t believe in bad finishes as a consequence of unluck alone. As I’ve said before, you create your own luck. The team believed that they missed podiums from Nurburgring, Canada, and the US. The factor frequently blamed is the tyres, but all in all, to the public, it’s just about the Toyota cars, and especially Jarno fading during the races.
That was just unfair!
True, that was unfair, but we just had to face reality that the results were not coming. We were the stuff of jokes for some time. There were rumors that other teams decide on their qualifying strategies depending on Jarno’s, that the most important thing at the starts is to get past the mobile chicane. It was unfair because there were other so-called mobile chicanes at different grands prix, like the other red cars.
So what do you think of Jarno anyway?
Well I don’t think he’s a mobile chicane, but I’m leaning towards Peter Windsor’s theory that Jarno is the type of driver who still has to learn to drive over the imperfections of his car. Hungary was a welcome anti-thesis to this theory, but it still appears that he tends to be more sensitive to even the littlest of changes in his car or tyres. Windsor concedes that Jarno is the best qualifier, only that the Italian primarily wants the car to adapt to him. As he prepares to qualify he comes up with the best set-up: he is adapting the car to his liking. He cannot do major set-up changes to the car during the race: this is when he has to adapt to the car, but apparently he doesn’t do a good job.
It’s a good thing that, having browsed through various forums, more and more people now have a better understanding of Jarno’s case as good racer/supreme qualifier rather the usual bad racer/good qualifier/mobile chicane statements.
I think he’s gone a long way to improve his craft beginning in 2004. I just have yet to see him overtake someone this year. Ralf is usually closing in on the one ahead of him while Jarno is satisfied to pace himself. For Jarno, half of the job is done anyway because he’s already in front, while Ralf needs to carve his way up the field.
What do you think is the reason behind Toyota’s mid-season drop-off, if you can call it that?
First of all, yes I think we can pretty much call it a mid-season drop-off. Competitiveness is always a relative thing, and if we look at all the races, except for the latest one in Hungary, we can see that in each grand prix we have been beaten, fairly, by either Ferrari or BAR, our closest rivals. Jarno’s retired podium in Canada would have been our first gifted podium, since without the retirements of the Renaults, Juan Pablo, and Jenson, yes the Honda, we wouldn’t have been running third in the first place. Our race pace, not even our insistent heavy-fueled strategy couldn’t vault us into a top three there. Although we had two cars in the points in France, we were clearly beaten by Michael and Jenson. In Britain, where I had higher hopes than usual, we could only manage a disappointing eighth. Finally in Hockenheim, Ralf was able to be racy with his brother and Giancarlo, but at the end of the day a Ferrari was still ahead, and more importantly, Jenson and Honda got themselves onto the podium. It was a gifted podium, nevertheless we also got a gifted podium the following race in Hungary, so it just levels out.
How about the US Grand Prix? We got our first pole there.
I don’t have anything to say about the politics, just that I agree that they shouldn’t have embarrassed F1 in the States. They should have come up with any solution or compromise. What I know is that Toyota was the biggest winner there. We got pole and one of our engines on the podium. Major publicity on our part. I’m confident of the car’s ability to be on pole, especially in the hands of Jarno, even with more than three laps worth of fuel. I was expecting nothing lower than P5 in qualifying. We were talked about very much after all the fiasco with doubts on Jarno’s pole, and Jordan-Toyota’s top three finish. And who else was there? Just the Ferrari. That’s something big in the States: a Toyota sharing the podium with the Ferraris. I just hope I’m not underestimating the US crowd with this…
The next weekend, we had ourselves full with publicity again with Olivier Panis in his home grand prix. Now what did you think of that?
Typical Toyota. You know, Toyota did more seat-shuffling with Ricardo and Olivier in last year’s Japanese and Brazilian grands prix. With Olivier, I just thought he’d probably go all out for P1 on Friday. It’s either our tyre problems really hampered him, or just that he was a little rusty for the job because not only did we not finish P2 as usual, but we were actually down as low as P5 or P6.
Hmm, that’s interesting. Now what about reliability? Would you say it was also a factor as regards our results?
We only had two major reliability offs in the last five races, and of the two it’s the one in Canada that directly cost us points. But I’d say Toyota reliability has still been top-notch all in all, although both Ferrari and BAR-Honda have also been failure-free of late. Our strong reliability means that we’ve scored in every race this season apart from Australia. Even during our more difficult times in the last few races we managed to score points, which is very important to maintain momentum and motivate the entire team. It shows how much we’ve matured over last year, and compares well with an established team like Williams, who for one weekend threatens our place in the championship only to be pointless in the next race.
Reliability as motivation? Why do you say so?
You can also see it as the antidote to frustration. I’m sure Christian Albers is gutted whenever his race is cut short, and he’s driving a Minardi. I imagine it’s even more frustrating when unreliability attacks a very capable car. Just ask Kimi Raikkonen.
Having mentioned Kimi Raikkonen, would you like him to be champion?
Yes, I prefer him over Fernando Alonso. But to be honest, should Fernando win, I think it will also be a well-deserved one. Fernando and his team deserve to win, whereas in Kimi’s case, it’s the driver alone who is properly deserving. These mistakes from McLaren mean that the fans are robbed not only of close fights on track; we are also robbed of at least a good battle in terms of points.
Aside from Kimi Raikkonen, which other driver do you support or admire?
I’m going to limit my self to Kimi Raikkonen, and my ultimate wish is to have someone like him to be a part of Toyota. I have a lot of respect for all F1 driver’s capabilities, and I’m satisfied with Jarno and Ralf. What I find special about Kimi is his being young, his talent, and yes, even his character, or what others consider as lack of character. I also follow to some extent people like Heikki Kova-something, Ryan Briscoe, Valentino Rossi, and Sebastian Loeb.
I see… Oh, I think we’ve strayed too far from one question. Going back to it, what do you think is the reason behind Toyota’s mid-season drop-off?
Probably lack of development. If one would do a quick scan of all the cars, it can be seen that the TF105 has had the least developments. The current basic form of the TF105 has been the same since Barcelona, with extra winglets appearing for Monaco and Hungary. All the top teams, and I mean all including Renault, McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, and BAR, and midfielders like Red Bull and Sauber have had major aero modifications. Therefore, it’s no surprise that BAR and Ferrari have had significant improvements in terms of pace. It’s just amazing, meanwhile, how McLaren and Renault manage to have a consistent gap, sometimes even increasing gap over all the others.
Surely there are minor changes here and there, not visible to the untrained eye, and what about those engine upgrades?
As expected, the engine department continues to deliver. The engines are powerful and reliable, and Jarno even managed to have one same engine for three events. The only slip up so far has been in Hockenheim, of all places. The engine troubles over at Jordan, according to reports, are more of Jordan’s wrongdoing than ours. Still, Mercedes-Benz Ilmor, Renault, and Honda also have engine upgrades every now and then. We do have modifications, but when Keizo Takahashi wrote of having triple the efforts of our competitors, then we fans cannot be blamed for having higher expectations. Contrary to this promise, there are instances when we arrive at a venue with the exact same car we raced at the previous event!
I can feel your sadness and disappointment there. Aren’t you just tired of the boxy look of the car? But to look at it more positively, you can perhaps think that despite the lack of major modifications, the TF105s continue to deliver.
Can’t agree with you more about the car being a little boxy, at least by today’s standards. Another positive way to look at it, is that despite the simple, boxy look the car is actually capable to challenging and running with the better looking ones. Contrary to the previous copying accusations, our car now is actually unique. Any Toyota F1 fan should visit the Technical Analysis section of formula1.com and feel proud how it is narrated there that this or that team sports this modification *first introduced by Toyota*.
Is that so? Which parts have been copied?
Small details. The winglets just above the front tyres, which admittedly we copied from Williams last year, has been copied by Renault and ironically, Williams. The “brows” by the side pods which we got from Jordan and we later modified is now sported by BAR-Honda. The fins around the middle of side pod openings have been copied by BAR and Ferrari. And the gills in the rear-wing endplates have been copied by other teams.
Just the same, the TF105 mirrored the other teams’ three-element quasi-wings in the air box and the mini rear wing.
I think it’s just about time. Other teams permanently have mini rear wings and quasi-wings by the rear wheels, but Toyota detached theirs after Monaco. We have yet to adopt an even tighter packaging at the rear and a more curved side pod profile. We have the simplest set of wings at the rear end of the car compared to virtually every other team. Just look at the rear ends of Williams, Renault, and BAR!
Perhaps we already have enough down force? Ours is simple and it works, but aren’t we supposed to have the most down force we can have?
I’m not sure really. This is a more technical question, but right now I’m guessing that we’re trying to minimize drag, we’re going for aero efficiency. We could ask Keizo…
Despite the less than fulfilled promise, aren’t you just thankful for Keizo?
Yes I am! Keizo is the Toyota F1 fan’s best friend, bringing us as close as can be to the team through his DTC reports. Sometimes I think he’s giving out too much for other teams to read, but then again he knows what he’s doing. He’s obviously a smart guy.
And I think his passion for his job ultimately makes him a fan at heart too.
I agree, and sometimes we the readers can also see how much he’s disappointed or pleased with the results. Speaking of which, his most recent concerns were the tyres. He’s confident we’ve gotten over our tyre problems already, although I personally think we’re still underperforming given the fact that we now have Pascal Vasselon with us.
Those black, round things have always been a Toyota’s Achilles heel, huh?
Unfortunately, yes. Ever since the TF102; I don’t know with the TF101. That is why Mr. Vasselon is such a prime catch. I have this uneducated idea that perhaps the recent increases in horsepower without the corresponding aero or mechanical improvements might have caused our tyre troubles. We have already improved our basic chassis thanks to Mike Gascoyne’s supervision, and now I think we need a reputable electronics guy to come up with the best electronics for us. Aero development is pretty much continuous, and I feel the remaining area where we could find big gains would be in suspension design and software. Then we could most effectively use our tyres.
There are rumors that some major modifications are due for the TF105, so let’s see. And still on tyres, what can you say about the nagging rumors that Toyota and Bridgestone could team up next year?
I go with what Mike said only recently: “It’s clear on which tyre brand one should be.” But allow me to be cynical: he said something like “If you look at the situation now”. I personally don’t like Toyota to switch tyres, mainly because of Bridgestone’s history and philosophy of putting all their eggs in one basket. Michelin is a fair team player, and despite a chance to establish a more personal partnership with McLaren or Renault for instance, they choose not to. Still, Bridgestone is capable of wonderful things so they cannot be a bad choice in the long term. One of the rumored reasons for a possible Toyota-Bridgestone partnership is the hint that Bridgestone is the more favored company to stay should F1 shift to just having a single tyre supplier.
I guess we’ll never know for now then.
Exactly. I suspect that Toyota is also in a wait-and-see approach. If Bridgestone goes back to winning ways by the end of the season, I can see Toyota announcing a switch at the start of off-season. A bit similar to Sauber’s switch to Michelin this year. Toyota will surely lose momentum though should they switch to Bridgestone next year, but it might turn out to be a wise, ample preparation for an all-out push and settled tyre partnership for 2007.
Funny that you mention 2007 and Sauber.
What about 2007 and Sauber?
Well, Sauber has been purchased by BMW, who has left Williams without an engine supplier, who has been rumored to be courting Toyota, who has been rumored, in turn, to be ready to supply them in 2007. What do you have to say?
To begin with, wow, that was smart! And to think you and I are the same! I think I’ve already begun from my last interview when I said I’d rather have Lexus sponsor the Toyota works team than enter F1 as an engine-badger to Williams.
Ok, but how about now with BMW and Sauber in the picture? Toyota supplying Williams in 2007 is looking more realistic by the day.
I feel like Toyota missed out on a good ally and a cheap bargain in Sauber. Grandprix.com reports that BMW got Sauber for a very good deal. Anyway I think Sauber was just waiting for someone to buy his team, and Toyota obviously wasn’t into taking over another F1 operation. Sauber would have been the perfect partner for Toyota, and I wish they just stuck to being an independent team. Sauber is the quintessential independent team, Red Bull of a different breed. Sauber have a good approach to whatever they do, except for hiring Jacques this year I must say. They are German-speaking, which would have worked very well with our being based in Cologne.
Die-hard Toyota fan from the Philippines TF102 returns to the scene with thoughts on the recent grands prix he missed reporting on, and a lot more.
Well, congratulations on Toyota’s recent solid return to form, and of course Ralf Schumacher’s first podium finish as a Toyota driver.
Thanks, and indeed it is refreshing, reinvigorating to have this kind of results once again. As I said it’s a good send-off for the three week summer break.
Speaking of breaks, you yourself have been on a long break. What happened?
Well yes, I have been a lazy fan. No, let me take that back. I’ve been a lazy writer but my support for the team never disappeared. I guess it all started when Karl Kinger, who manages Totally Toyota F1, offered column space for my interviews. First of all I felt honored and it just feels great to know that people appreciate my work. And then I was overwhelmed, like it was too much for me.
Why would you consider a column space too much for you? You have been sharing your F1 thoughts even before that.
Yes, but a dedicated TF102 space would be a lot of responsibilities. I had some concerns, on top of these is the fact that I just write whenever I can, or sometimes want. And I think more importantly, I was afraid that a lot of people would disagree with my more subjective approach to writing or evaluating the team, drivers, etc.
But isn’t it supposed to be sort of an opinion column, hence you’re more or less free to be as subjective as you want.
For sure, but let me reiterate that though I have come to more greatly appreciate our drivers Jarno and Ralf, I am first and foremost a Toyota supporter. There is a clear distinction there – there are those who support a certain driver, there are those who support the team, and then there also those who support F1 altogether. I’m afraid I might not please everyone. I thought I wasn’t prepared as yet to be put on the spotlight, should I end up with opinions not entirely in line with the majority’s. But here I am, so…
Ok, fair enough. So why did it take so long?
Once I stopped for a while, for Canada and Indy, I just spiraled into a deeper level of laziness, so to speak. And of course, I must admit that the lack of good results made it difficult for me to come up with reports. After the Indy fiasco, I missed France, Silverstone, and Hockenheim.
So including Hungary, you owe us five grands prix. What do you have to say for yourself now?
I think I just told you a lot of things. I pretty much explained already.
How about an apology?
Do I have to? Ok then, my apologies for the long delay. But I have some juicy stories to share. I will no longer devote much space for evaluating the team’s performance in the previous races. We all pretty much know about those already.
But how would you assess the team’s overall performance in those five grands prix?
I think we stagnated a little, and that is pretty much equal to taking a step back, a little one. But small mistakes, small unluck or misfortunes projected a more significant drop in competitiveness. Race pace turned out to be more and more “questionable” to put it nicely. I think it goes as far back as Nurburgring when Jarno suffered a lot from his drive-through penalty, when in comparison David Coulthard recovered nicely to still finish fourth.
Those were frustrating, and embarrassing times. When else was race pace the culprit and when was it just pure unluck?
Actually I don’t believe in bad finishes as a consequence of unluck alone. As I’ve said before, you create your own luck. The team believed that they missed podiums from Nurburgring, Canada, and the US. The factor frequently blamed is the tyres, but all in all, to the public, it’s just about the Toyota cars, and especially Jarno fading during the races.
That was just unfair!
True, that was unfair, but we just had to face reality that the results were not coming. We were the stuff of jokes for some time. There were rumors that other teams decide on their qualifying strategies depending on Jarno’s, that the most important thing at the starts is to get past the mobile chicane. It was unfair because there were other so-called mobile chicanes at different grands prix, like the other red cars.
So what do you think of Jarno anyway?
Well I don’t think he’s a mobile chicane, but I’m leaning towards Peter Windsor’s theory that Jarno is the type of driver who still has to learn to drive over the imperfections of his car. Hungary was a welcome anti-thesis to this theory, but it still appears that he tends to be more sensitive to even the littlest of changes in his car or tyres. Windsor concedes that Jarno is the best qualifier, only that the Italian primarily wants the car to adapt to him. As he prepares to qualify he comes up with the best set-up: he is adapting the car to his liking. He cannot do major set-up changes to the car during the race: this is when he has to adapt to the car, but apparently he doesn’t do a good job.
It’s a good thing that, having browsed through various forums, more and more people now have a better understanding of Jarno’s case as good racer/supreme qualifier rather the usual bad racer/good qualifier/mobile chicane statements.
I think he’s gone a long way to improve his craft beginning in 2004. I just have yet to see him overtake someone this year. Ralf is usually closing in on the one ahead of him while Jarno is satisfied to pace himself. For Jarno, half of the job is done anyway because he’s already in front, while Ralf needs to carve his way up the field.
What do you think is the reason behind Toyota’s mid-season drop-off, if you can call it that?
First of all, yes I think we can pretty much call it a mid-season drop-off. Competitiveness is always a relative thing, and if we look at all the races, except for the latest one in Hungary, we can see that in each grand prix we have been beaten, fairly, by either Ferrari or BAR, our closest rivals. Jarno’s retired podium in Canada would have been our first gifted podium, since without the retirements of the Renaults, Juan Pablo, and Jenson, yes the Honda, we wouldn’t have been running third in the first place. Our race pace, not even our insistent heavy-fueled strategy couldn’t vault us into a top three there. Although we had two cars in the points in France, we were clearly beaten by Michael and Jenson. In Britain, where I had higher hopes than usual, we could only manage a disappointing eighth. Finally in Hockenheim, Ralf was able to be racy with his brother and Giancarlo, but at the end of the day a Ferrari was still ahead, and more importantly, Jenson and Honda got themselves onto the podium. It was a gifted podium, nevertheless we also got a gifted podium the following race in Hungary, so it just levels out.
How about the US Grand Prix? We got our first pole there.
I don’t have anything to say about the politics, just that I agree that they shouldn’t have embarrassed F1 in the States. They should have come up with any solution or compromise. What I know is that Toyota was the biggest winner there. We got pole and one of our engines on the podium. Major publicity on our part. I’m confident of the car’s ability to be on pole, especially in the hands of Jarno, even with more than three laps worth of fuel. I was expecting nothing lower than P5 in qualifying. We were talked about very much after all the fiasco with doubts on Jarno’s pole, and Jordan-Toyota’s top three finish. And who else was there? Just the Ferrari. That’s something big in the States: a Toyota sharing the podium with the Ferraris. I just hope I’m not underestimating the US crowd with this…
The next weekend, we had ourselves full with publicity again with Olivier Panis in his home grand prix. Now what did you think of that?
Typical Toyota. You know, Toyota did more seat-shuffling with Ricardo and Olivier in last year’s Japanese and Brazilian grands prix. With Olivier, I just thought he’d probably go all out for P1 on Friday. It’s either our tyre problems really hampered him, or just that he was a little rusty for the job because not only did we not finish P2 as usual, but we were actually down as low as P5 or P6.
Hmm, that’s interesting. Now what about reliability? Would you say it was also a factor as regards our results?
We only had two major reliability offs in the last five races, and of the two it’s the one in Canada that directly cost us points. But I’d say Toyota reliability has still been top-notch all in all, although both Ferrari and BAR-Honda have also been failure-free of late. Our strong reliability means that we’ve scored in every race this season apart from Australia. Even during our more difficult times in the last few races we managed to score points, which is very important to maintain momentum and motivate the entire team. It shows how much we’ve matured over last year, and compares well with an established team like Williams, who for one weekend threatens our place in the championship only to be pointless in the next race.
Reliability as motivation? Why do you say so?
You can also see it as the antidote to frustration. I’m sure Christian Albers is gutted whenever his race is cut short, and he’s driving a Minardi. I imagine it’s even more frustrating when unreliability attacks a very capable car. Just ask Kimi Raikkonen.
Having mentioned Kimi Raikkonen, would you like him to be champion?
Yes, I prefer him over Fernando Alonso. But to be honest, should Fernando win, I think it will also be a well-deserved one. Fernando and his team deserve to win, whereas in Kimi’s case, it’s the driver alone who is properly deserving. These mistakes from McLaren mean that the fans are robbed not only of close fights on track; we are also robbed of at least a good battle in terms of points.
Aside from Kimi Raikkonen, which other driver do you support or admire?
I’m going to limit my self to Kimi Raikkonen, and my ultimate wish is to have someone like him to be a part of Toyota. I have a lot of respect for all F1 driver’s capabilities, and I’m satisfied with Jarno and Ralf. What I find special about Kimi is his being young, his talent, and yes, even his character, or what others consider as lack of character. I also follow to some extent people like Heikki Kova-something, Ryan Briscoe, Valentino Rossi, and Sebastian Loeb.
I see… Oh, I think we’ve strayed too far from one question. Going back to it, what do you think is the reason behind Toyota’s mid-season drop-off?
Probably lack of development. If one would do a quick scan of all the cars, it can be seen that the TF105 has had the least developments. The current basic form of the TF105 has been the same since Barcelona, with extra winglets appearing for Monaco and Hungary. All the top teams, and I mean all including Renault, McLaren, Ferrari, Williams, and BAR, and midfielders like Red Bull and Sauber have had major aero modifications. Therefore, it’s no surprise that BAR and Ferrari have had significant improvements in terms of pace. It’s just amazing, meanwhile, how McLaren and Renault manage to have a consistent gap, sometimes even increasing gap over all the others.
Surely there are minor changes here and there, not visible to the untrained eye, and what about those engine upgrades?
As expected, the engine department continues to deliver. The engines are powerful and reliable, and Jarno even managed to have one same engine for three events. The only slip up so far has been in Hockenheim, of all places. The engine troubles over at Jordan, according to reports, are more of Jordan’s wrongdoing than ours. Still, Mercedes-Benz Ilmor, Renault, and Honda also have engine upgrades every now and then. We do have modifications, but when Keizo Takahashi wrote of having triple the efforts of our competitors, then we fans cannot be blamed for having higher expectations. Contrary to this promise, there are instances when we arrive at a venue with the exact same car we raced at the previous event!
I can feel your sadness and disappointment there. Aren’t you just tired of the boxy look of the car? But to look at it more positively, you can perhaps think that despite the lack of major modifications, the TF105s continue to deliver.
Can’t agree with you more about the car being a little boxy, at least by today’s standards. Another positive way to look at it, is that despite the simple, boxy look the car is actually capable to challenging and running with the better looking ones. Contrary to the previous copying accusations, our car now is actually unique. Any Toyota F1 fan should visit the Technical Analysis section of formula1.com and feel proud how it is narrated there that this or that team sports this modification *first introduced by Toyota*.
Is that so? Which parts have been copied?
Small details. The winglets just above the front tyres, which admittedly we copied from Williams last year, has been copied by Renault and ironically, Williams. The “brows” by the side pods which we got from Jordan and we later modified is now sported by BAR-Honda. The fins around the middle of side pod openings have been copied by BAR and Ferrari. And the gills in the rear-wing endplates have been copied by other teams.
Just the same, the TF105 mirrored the other teams’ three-element quasi-wings in the air box and the mini rear wing.
I think it’s just about time. Other teams permanently have mini rear wings and quasi-wings by the rear wheels, but Toyota detached theirs after Monaco. We have yet to adopt an even tighter packaging at the rear and a more curved side pod profile. We have the simplest set of wings at the rear end of the car compared to virtually every other team. Just look at the rear ends of Williams, Renault, and BAR!
Perhaps we already have enough down force? Ours is simple and it works, but aren’t we supposed to have the most down force we can have?
I’m not sure really. This is a more technical question, but right now I’m guessing that we’re trying to minimize drag, we’re going for aero efficiency. We could ask Keizo…
Despite the less than fulfilled promise, aren’t you just thankful for Keizo?
Yes I am! Keizo is the Toyota F1 fan’s best friend, bringing us as close as can be to the team through his DTC reports. Sometimes I think he’s giving out too much for other teams to read, but then again he knows what he’s doing. He’s obviously a smart guy.
And I think his passion for his job ultimately makes him a fan at heart too.
I agree, and sometimes we the readers can also see how much he’s disappointed or pleased with the results. Speaking of which, his most recent concerns were the tyres. He’s confident we’ve gotten over our tyre problems already, although I personally think we’re still underperforming given the fact that we now have Pascal Vasselon with us.
Those black, round things have always been a Toyota’s Achilles heel, huh?
Unfortunately, yes. Ever since the TF102; I don’t know with the TF101. That is why Mr. Vasselon is such a prime catch. I have this uneducated idea that perhaps the recent increases in horsepower without the corresponding aero or mechanical improvements might have caused our tyre troubles. We have already improved our basic chassis thanks to Mike Gascoyne’s supervision, and now I think we need a reputable electronics guy to come up with the best electronics for us. Aero development is pretty much continuous, and I feel the remaining area where we could find big gains would be in suspension design and software. Then we could most effectively use our tyres.
There are rumors that some major modifications are due for the TF105, so let’s see. And still on tyres, what can you say about the nagging rumors that Toyota and Bridgestone could team up next year?
I go with what Mike said only recently: “It’s clear on which tyre brand one should be.” But allow me to be cynical: he said something like “If you look at the situation now”. I personally don’t like Toyota to switch tyres, mainly because of Bridgestone’s history and philosophy of putting all their eggs in one basket. Michelin is a fair team player, and despite a chance to establish a more personal partnership with McLaren or Renault for instance, they choose not to. Still, Bridgestone is capable of wonderful things so they cannot be a bad choice in the long term. One of the rumored reasons for a possible Toyota-Bridgestone partnership is the hint that Bridgestone is the more favored company to stay should F1 shift to just having a single tyre supplier.
I guess we’ll never know for now then.
Exactly. I suspect that Toyota is also in a wait-and-see approach. If Bridgestone goes back to winning ways by the end of the season, I can see Toyota announcing a switch at the start of off-season. A bit similar to Sauber’s switch to Michelin this year. Toyota will surely lose momentum though should they switch to Bridgestone next year, but it might turn out to be a wise, ample preparation for an all-out push and settled tyre partnership for 2007.
Funny that you mention 2007 and Sauber.
What about 2007 and Sauber?
Well, Sauber has been purchased by BMW, who has left Williams without an engine supplier, who has been rumored to be courting Toyota, who has been rumored, in turn, to be ready to supply them in 2007. What do you have to say?
To begin with, wow, that was smart! And to think you and I are the same! I think I’ve already begun from my last interview when I said I’d rather have Lexus sponsor the Toyota works team than enter F1 as an engine-badger to Williams.
Ok, but how about now with BMW and Sauber in the picture? Toyota supplying Williams in 2007 is looking more realistic by the day.
I feel like Toyota missed out on a good ally and a cheap bargain in Sauber. Grandprix.com reports that BMW got Sauber for a very good deal. Anyway I think Sauber was just waiting for someone to buy his team, and Toyota obviously wasn’t into taking over another F1 operation. Sauber would have been the perfect partner for Toyota, and I wish they just stuck to being an independent team. Sauber is the quintessential independent team, Red Bull of a different breed. Sauber have a good approach to whatever they do, except for hiring Jacques this year I must say. They are German-speaking, which would have worked very well with our being based in Cologne.
