JANUARY 8, 2005

Toyota unveils the TF105

Mika Gascoyne's first complete car at Toyota was unveiled in Barcelona on Saturday with the team hoping that the new chassis will move the team up the Formula 1 grid. Gascoyne said that the team compromised the development of the TF104B in order to try to gain an advantage for 2005. The team is happy that the result will start the new season with the same level of downforce as the old car had, which is an illustration of just how poor the 2004 car was at the start of last year.

"We have made excellent progress in all departments," said team boss Tsutomu Tomita, "and by striving to continuously improve the accuracy of our testing procedures, we are seeing an ever-improving correlation between the factory and the race track, which will permit us to get the maximum performance out of the car during the race weekend. Such progress over a comparatively short period has only been made possible as a result of our initial decision to develop the entire F1 car ourselves under one roof."

The team also hopes that the new driver line-up for 2005 will improve results with Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher having been taken on to give the team more profile.

The sponsorship package is fundamentally unchanged from 2004.