2001 I started a long stint with Toyota in formula 1. From the second test until the very last dance at Abu Dhabi 2009 I have been with the team, being present throughout all the time at almost all races (only missed two when my son was born) and uncounted tests. Looking back from today, it was a fantastic time with so many lessons learnt over the years with the biggest regret being that we didn’t manage to win a race. Quite a few podiums, but no race win – that was tough!
The whole time was a continuous series of ups and downs. It started with one year of testing. 18 Tests, the last one in Paul Ricard over 14 days – gruelling! And that at a time when an engine life was 500 km, very much one test day. The first race season started (too) good with points finishes in the first and third race with points only being awarded to the top six cars, not top 10 like nowadays. And, if it wouldn’t have been for Mika Salo pitting unannounced and taking Allan McNish’s (again running in P6 at that time) tyres, we would have scored in the first three races. The team wasn’t ready though to develop the car in parallel to an F1 season, so performance trailed off over the season, but expectations had made a step after the beginning, so the atmosphere got tense and both drivers were replaced for the following season.
2003 was a rather unspectacular season. The odd points finish, but the highlight was qualifying at Indianapolis, where we manage a P3 in Qualifying for the first time. Unfortunately, this race got destroyed by a call from the team manager forcing both cars to stop for wet tyres, because the forecast was for almost immediate rain, which then never came and we had to stop again for dries. With the lack of results, Mike Gascoyne was employed, with the brief that the car was good, but the race team crap. I had moved up from race engineer to chief race engineer, already in the second half of the season 2002, so I had Mike attached to my testicles from day 1. After half the season or so, Mike came to me and told me about his brief, telling me as well that the race team was good, but the car was crap. After that moment, I really enjoyed working with Mike and felt he had a good confidence for what concerns the racing operation.
The 2005 season then was the first rather successful season with our maiden podium in Malaysia in P2, which we repeated in the race after at Bahrain, with Jarno and with more podiums following. These were the times when you qualified with race fuel and, unfortunately, we were driven to go too aggressive in terms of fuel load for qualifying, which , in my opinion, cost us a few better result, with the worst moment probably at Spa, where we had to pit early on a drying track and then took the wrong decision with tyres, opting for dry tyres, basically showing everybody else that they weren’t working yet. Still, I would consider 2005 as a quite successful year with 5 podiums by the end of the season.