As the current Formula 1 season unfolds, Toyota has set eyes to overtake BMW and became the third fastest team. The team is currently competing in a tight race against a team like Renault, Red Bull, and Williams. Team president John Howett believes that his team has what it takes to pull away from the word team and compete with the German team.
The announcement came as the Barcelona Grand Prix approaches. To date, the team has had considerable successes but needs podium finishes becoming a strong contender to BMW. Howett maintained that their goal for the season is to continue what they have been doing in order to maintain their current standing as one of the top teams in the second group. He also pointed out that they have to be able to prevent slipping down the rankings.
Howett said that the team has gone a long distance since they have joined the F1 melee. “It’s clear from last year that we can make major improvements in performance over a season after we moved from a pretty slow start to a competitive position at the end of the year,” he said. Howett expressed his confidence on his team to perform well for the remainder of the season although he maintained that they will be up against some strong teams. “We are intending to do exactly the same this year but we are acutely aware there are another four, five or six teams out there trying to do exactly the same,” said Howett. “It is a motivating challenge for the people here to do it again and to show we are an emerging and serious challenger on the F1 grid,” he added further.
Meanwhile, Toyota’s Senior General Manager Pascal Vasselon talks about his expectations for the team at the upcoming Barcelona Grand Prix. Vasselon also reflected on team Toyota’s accomplishment at the Bahrain Grand Prix. He explained how the race has gone for the team. “On the one hand it was a better race for us than expected,” he says. “People may remember that in Bahrain testing we were not looking so good. In fact there were some obvious explanations, the first one being that we had quite a few small reliability issues that just prevented us from running. When you don’t get a lot of mileage you end up in a vicious circle – you don’t develop the car, you don’t evolve a set-up and so it goes on.”
He also compared the Bahrain race to the Malaysian Grand Prix saying: “One consequence was that we were unable to run low levels of downforce. From that point of view quite a lot changed at the race and in terms of performance with one car we were another step closer to the top, even compared to Malaysia. With Ralf (Schumacher) we were not as quick as we would have liked and we clearly have to review some of the set-up guidelines. At some places, such as Bahrain, some of those recent guidelines are simply not working.” » Read more: Toyota Aims to overtake BMW