By Toyota Media and Nick Sparkes
September 15 2005

Panasonic Toyota Racing was at Silverstone this week, reviewing their TF105B as well as running their current TF105. Ralf Schumacher, Ricardo Zonta and Olivier Panis were on hand as Toyota rounded off the laps in what turned out to be a positive test. During the 3 days the weather proved to be inconsistent, but Toyota did put the drivers out on the right tyres, I guess still embarrassed by their Spa gambles. Olivier Panis ran all 3 days in Toyota’s new TF105B whilst Ricardo Zonta did an evaluation on tyres in the TF105. Ralf Schumacher had a go in both cars over two days, giving Toyota valuable information on how the TF105 and TF105B compare.

The test was successful, although the team still experienced a couple of late hiccups with the TF105B. There is still no confirmed word from Toyota on the current state of play with Toyotas upgraded car, although sources say that its debut will now be at their home race in Japan.

All three Toyota drivers and Mike Gascoyne spoke to Toyota-F1.com about their test, this is what they had to say:

Ralf Schumacher

Ralf, what was your test programme?
"We spent Wednesday working mainly on tyres for Suzuka. We also did some work on brakes, steering and weight distribution and everything went well. For Thursday we had lined up a back-to-back test of the TF105 and the TF105B but the wet weather didn't allow us to reap the full benefits."

How much of a blow was the rain on Thursday?
"We were hoping to have a direct comparison but the weather took a turn for the worse and the wet conditions made it impossible to get a realistic idea of the relative performance. But it was good to have a run in the B car which is a useful part of our development programme for 2006."

Ricardo Zonta What did you work on at this test?
"I was only at Silverstone on Tuesday, and I spent the day testing tyres in preparation for the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka. This track is similar to that one so this was quite an important test for that race. I enjoy running at Silverstone and we did some useful work so it was a good day."

Did everything go smoothly?
"We didn't get as much done in the morning as we would have liked because there were red lights, so we had to wait for the afternoon to get the tyre comparisons done. We had a couple of stoppages with a glitch with a fuel connector but we got through our programme fine."

Olivier Panis

Olivier, you spent the week running the TF105B. How did it go?
"We had a really positive week of work on the B car. It was a big step forward compared to the last test, when we had some technical problems. This time things worked much better so it is a big step in the right direction."

So how does the TF105B feel? "It felt really good everywhere. It was good in both low and high speed corners, it seemed to have less understeer than the TF105 and it had more front grip in general. Unfortunately the weather was too bad to do much work on the last morning so I just did some wet launches. But I'm sure this test will be useful for our work for next year."

Mike Gascoyne, Technical Director Chassis

How would you sum up the test?
"We had a very successful test with the TF105B, which features a different front suspension from the TF105. We had a problem with the power steering at the previous test, but here at Silverstone we were able to eradicate it. That meant we were able to get on and evaluate the car properly. We initially planned to test the car for only one day but we lengthened that to the entire test, and the results were very positive."