2007: The calm before the storm


By Luke Marc Carlile-Stanton
January 5 2007

A week today Toyota will launch their 2007 car, the TF107 at Toyota Motorsports HQ in Cologne, Germany.

What a difference a year makes. This time last year F1 pundits and fans around the world were reviewing Toyota’s what can only be described awesome 2005 season. 2005 was a year in which Toyota made a giant leap forward, 8th in 2004 to 4th in 2005 with more than double the points! It was a great year which saw drivers Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher take a total of 5 podiums, Toyota’s first five.

 

Looking into 2006 many expected Toyota to be ‘’Dark Horses’’ for the title. Testing however proved something rather different, Toyota weren’t on the pace and by the time they had arrived in Bahrain for the first race of 2006 hopes were rather down, something which was only proven in the results, 14th place for Ralf and 16th for Jarno…..the title talk went down the pan.

 

Things didn’t get better, the TF106 was unreliable, both Ralf and Jarno had missed opportunities to score vital points, most notably Jarno at Monaco when he was in third and Ralf at Indianapolis when he was in 5th.  2006 also saw the departure of technical director Mike Gascoyne. Crisis talks were called after the Australian Grand Prix and despite Ralf getting the team’s only podium of the year with third place, Gascoyne was shown the door before the San Marino Grand Prix at Imola. If it was hoped this would perk things up it rather failed, Toyota finished the season in sixth place, one point behind BMW-Sauber, 2005 seemed a long way-a-way.

 

But 2007 is different, Toyota and the fans of the team and it’s drivers have to look ahead to the new year with as much optimism as they can and hope for a better season and hope the guys at Cologne have produced the goods, it’s almost like a new start, it’s going to be tough, the opposition is getting stronger, Red Bull will have an Adrian Newey designed car and Renault engines. Newey being the genius who took titles for Williams and Mclaren has shifted to RBR and with arguably one of the best engines in the business his creation could be deadly. Honda is as ever a rival, this time it’s Honda who are the outside bet for the title, it seems to switch between the Japanese manufactures! But Honda are likely to produce the goods again, whether they will actually be title contenders it’s an outside bet and you’d have to be a risk taker if you were to put your eggs in one basket! Still Honda is a strong team and will be battling hard like everyone else. BMW-Sauber are they other rival, beating Toyota by one point last season the only way for them is up and we all suspect that out of the four BMW-Sauber maybe the strongest, it’s highly feasible.

 

But Toyota wise, optimism has to up BUT there is no choice for them, Toyota have to deliver in 2007 no questions asked, this is it. A lot of pressure is on the team, on the drivers. A message to Toyota F1 top brass: Deliver the goods now. The fans have had enough of sitting around watching poor results. Make the TF107 a good one.

 

2007 will herald a new TTF1 as well. During last year I spent a few months in the training of the man I am proud to call my mentor; Nicholas Sparkes. Nick was inspirational and a fantastic site admin and he tought me everything I know, everything I needed to know to take over from him. At the Turkish Grand Prix Nick handed the keys to me and my new site team, myself, Lael Damasceno and Naomi Willemsen. Together we shall try and keep the up keep of TTF1 and keep it as successful as it was before, be up to date with the latest news and get an exclusive scoops we can =D.

 

Thanks for your support and when the TF107 is launched next week let’s hope for the best for Toyota and hope they make a major step forward. Let battle commence!