Toyota's form in 2007

[Ian McC]

I don't think people expect much more from Toyota. Did Ralf have a problem? Because if he didn't then that was very poor indeed.

[Mikeall]

He had a puncture I think.

[jens]

Yep, Ralf had a slow puncture during second stint. Btw, Trulli is quite pessimistic about the upcoming Bahrain GP as he fears that the car is not suitable for the circuit.

It seems that Toyota has been quite terrified about last season's low reliability level. It seems that for this season they have tried to surely build a reliable car and therefore the speed has suffered a bit (maybe McLaren had the same phenomenon in 2006?). Now their task should be to build up speed on reliability.

I wonder, when Toyota realises need for changes (unlike for example Honda they are not attempting to hire any well-known specialist). This TF107 is the first car built without any impact of Gascoyne (that quite quick TF106B was still partly "his car") and maybe Toyota believed that this time they can do it on their own. Probably they'll wait until somewhere mid-season and if things haven't gone better by then, then they might start thinking about making changes again.

Btw, my small dream is to see Toyota hiring Jean Todt - the same man, who had important role in saving Ferrari from the bottom. :

[keysersoze]

"Certainly it hasn't been as successful as I wished it to be. My time with Toyota is looking good and promising. But as you have seen F1 is a difficult business and you need patience. One thing is very clear, you can't buy success. You can't buy experience too. You are fighting against teams that have been for 20, 30 years into that business. We are the only team in the last 15 years to have started from scratch. It takes a while."

If only the team's owner realized, as does Ralf, that "you can't buy success." They might have offered him $2-3 mil rather than $25 mil.

[jens]

I'm pretty satisfied with Toyota's effort. Trulli did a fine job, defending well and making some nice passes, which had a vital role in making a point finish. Basically Jarno was "the best of the rest", as Top3 teams were absolutely the class of the field. In mid-race it seemed that he was in trouble as DC passed him and Jarno was dropping backwards, but as it later turned out - his 2nd stint was longer than others'.

The unluck of Red Bulls helped him a bit, but before the last stops both Red Bulls ran just a few seconds ahead of Jarno and both RBRs pitted earlier. Alas both Red Bulls blew up before Trulli's last stop, so we didn't see whether Trulli could have beaten them or not, but at the moment that's even not important - 2 points and closing on Renaults in the WCC are important.

Ralf's race was destroyed by unsuccessful qualifying. He actually didn't finish too far behind Jarno - the gap was less than 20 secs, but the group of Toyotas, Williamses and Renaults was so close that it meant a five-position loss.

And also - Toyota needs something to do with their starts. This season they have always lost 1-2 positions after the start. :\