Toyota TF106

TF106 is a single-seater of the stable Toyota, committed during the season 2006 with the hands of Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli.

History

In a Formula 1 which turns more and more to the confrontation between large manufacturers, world second manufacturing cannot be allowed to play the supporting roles in the most prestigious competition of the automobile sport. After one good season 2005, and in spite of the many changes of regulation, its passage in the clan Bridgestone, the members of the stable of Cologne are very optimistic. Moreover, the TF106 is the first single-seater believed 2006 in being presented.

Unfortunately the first winter tests quickly make to déchanter the layings of Toyota. Indeed the creation of Mike Gascoyne (defector of Renault in 2003) sorrow to follow the rate/rhythm of the best single-seaters of the intersaison: Renault R26, Honda RA106, McLaren MP4-21 or Ferrari 248 F1.

The first Grand Prix of the season does nothing but reinforce these fears: completely out of the blow, Toyota can pride themselves only on one exemplary reliability. In Malaysia the things go better since Ralf Schumacher registers the first point of the team in 2006. Performance which it republishes in Australia two weeks later. Qualified sixth, it finishes on the third walk of the podium, behind Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen. But this excellent result is somewhat skewed by the chaotic character of the appointment of Antipodes: ten abandonments, four interludes under the mode of the security car prohibit to proclaim the final return of the Japanese stable to the outposts. More especially as Jarno Trulli, shining one year before, seems in difficulty this year: systematically dominated by its team-member, overpowered mechanical problems, implied in a fixing with the Red Bull RB2 of David Coulthard in Australia in the first turn. The black cat seems to have chosen the cockpit of the transalpine pilots these last seasons!

Two weeks before the return in Europe of the protagonists of the Championship of the world, a dramatic turn of events shakes the structure of Cologne: Mike Gascoyne leaves the team, following an internal rehandling! who, paradoxically, causes a renewal of performance. With Imola, Ralf Schumacher is sixth on the grid, ninth in race, and Jarno Trulli ninth in qualifications, but must give up with the fifth turn on a problem not identified.

With residence, the members of the team based in Cologne do not carry out a brilliant race, best Trulli taking on Schumacher after having taken the mule, whose spacer differed from that of the racing racing car: perhaps a solution with the against-performances of the Italian since the beginning of the season. Seventh and tenth on the grid, the TF106 do not shine in race, Trulli failing the door of the points when its team-member gives up. This syndrome is repeated in Spain, since although springing sixth and seventh places on the grid, the Japanese single-seaters do not bring back any point of the Catalan appointment, and pass very close to the ridiculous one, Ralf Schumacher, more fast at the beginning of race than its team-member, falls down in one through one had already known to him at Williams: fratricidal harpooning! It gives up shortly after to have struck Trulli. Perhaps this is the reason of dull the tenth place of the Italian, but it seems coherent, whereas Ferrari and Renault is detached at the top from the discipline, Toyota seems far, very far from its ambitions.

In Monaco however, the introduction of the TF106B seems to have effects: Trulli is on the podium with six towers of the end, when its hydraulics the coward. The Italian is definitely cursed this season. Ralf Schumacher saves a point of the end of the week Monegasque, but the Japanese stable is joined by Red Bull Racing with the Championship. In England, the problems continue to overpower the stable and its pilots: qualified in last position after engineering problems which prevented it from buckling the least turn, Trulli sees its race ruined as of saturdays, and Ralf Schumacher, seventh on the grid, is projected by Scott Speed in the Williams of Mark Webber as of the first turn.

In Canada, Trulli signs an outstanding performance by being classified fourth on the grid, first of the Bridgestone clan, then by occupying the third place during part of the race before falling in the sixth place, empochant its first points of the season and confirming its return foreseen to Monaco with its usual performance level. Its fellow-member on the other hand seems to have inherited pitches tough who stuck to the Italian, since this weekend was black for that which was essential in 2001 on this circuit: problems of grip due to a choice of gums involving ten exit ramps, implication in the abandonment of Villeneuve and finally abandonment with the fifty-eighth turn.

One week later, with Indianapolis, the manufacturer of Japanese tires Bridgestone very largely dominates his French counterpart, and the teams under contract with the Japanese thus dominate very largely: the Ferrari dominate of the head and the shoulders all the weekend, and the TF106 are shown very with their advantage: last party following the rupture of a shock absorber, Trulli leaves for only one stop and finishes fourth at the end of a splendid race, during which it precedes its team-member left eighth, and which gives up whereas it was fifth. Toyota is not any more that at three points of BMW Sauber and goes back to the classification. In France, this tendency is confirmed: Ralf Schumacher finishes fourth and was preceded by its team-member until the abandonment of this one: a beautiful overall performance flies away for the Nipponese team but the situation is encouraging. In Germany, Trulli empoche two additional points whereas it left twentieth on the grid after a change engine!

Prize list

(before the Grand Prix of France)

Results

Pilots

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