Panasonic Toyota Racing
| Season: | 2005 | | | | Address: | Toyota Motorsport GmbH
Toyota Allee 7
50858 Cologne (Marsdorf)
Germany
Tel: +49 2234 1823 444
Fax: +49 2234 1823 37 | | | | Country: | Germany | | | | Sponsors: | Panasonic, Intel, Future Sports, M.B.A., Pocklingtons, Denso, Travelex, Avex, AOL Time Warner, BBS, Catia, EMC, CRP, EOS, Esso, KTC, Magneti Marelli, MAN Trucks, Meteo France, Michelin, Ebon Dacs, Technogym, Sika, Sparco, St. Georges, VUARNET, Wella, Yamaha, Angelika Bush, DEA, DLR, ZF Sachs, Furture Sports, M.B.A. | | | | Teamboss: | Tsutomu Tomita | | | | President: | John Howett | | | | Chairman: | Tsutomu Tomita | | | | Managing director: | Keizo Takahashi | | | | Technical director: | Mike Gascoyne | | | | Team principal: | Richard Creegan | | | | Engine development: | Luca Marmorini | | | | Chief designer: | Gustav Brunner | | | | Chief engineer: | Dieter Gass | | | | Engineer: | Ossi Oikarinen & Remi Decorzent | | | | Test driver: | Ricardo Zonta & Olivier Panis | | | | Constructor: | Toyota | | |
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Panasonic Toyota Racing
2005 was a year of firsts for the Toyota team. Their first front row start at the season opener was followed by a first podium and then a first pole. Sadly only victory eluded them, but they had plenty of other things to celebrate.
It all began in Melbourne, where a wet track shook up the first aggregate qualifying session. In a wet-dry session, Jarno Trulli was one of the biggest beneficiaries, setting the second fastest lap time behind Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault. Sadly his team-mate Ralf Schumacher wasn’t so lucky, and would start from down in fifteenth position. The race didn’t go so well for Toyota. Despite holding second in the early stages, Trulli fell away and could finish no better than ninth. Ralf climbed up the order to finish tenth. Both drivers failed to score points.
Once again Jarno Trulli qualified on the front row in Malaysia, starting once more behind a Renault, this time Alonso. However this time it was no fluke, the car genuinely had pace, and Jarno held on to score Toyota’s first podium. Ralf Schumacher started, and finished, fifth.
The next race was Bahrain, where Trulli qualified in third position. He held onto this position at the start, and then moved up to second when Michael Schumacher retired, a position which he kept until the end. Toyota’s second straight podium, and with Ralf in fourth, the team had 25 points from the opening three races.
Entering Imola the team seemed to have lost form. Sunday was an off-day for the team, with Trulli finishing in seventh and Schumacher eleventh. However seventh and eleventh became fifth and ninth after the two BARs were disqualified, and Trulli picked up another four points. The team improved once again in Spain. Ralf outqualified Jarno for the first time this season as the Japanese cars qualified fourth and fifth. Unfortunately for the German he was outraced by his team-mate and this cost him a podium. Trulli was third, Schumacher fourth.
Monaco could have been a good race for the team, sadly they disappointed. Running sixth and eighth entering the closing laps, a five car queue featuring the two Toyota’s caught up with Fisichella’s slowing Renault. Trulli, who was leading the queue, attempted to dive past the Renault at Loews, only to damage his car on the kerbs. This promoted Ralf to seventh, which eventually became sixth when Fisichella’s car finally succumbed.
The European Grand Prix will be seen as a wasted opportunity for Toyota. Having qualified fourth, Jarno Trulli was penalised because his team were working on his car after the time limit had expired. Stuck in traffic thereafter, Trulli enjoyed an unspectacular run on the way to eighth place. Again in Canada Trulli could have had a podium, only for his brakes to fail with 8 laps to go while running a strong third. Schumacher came home sixth.
A bittersweet race for the team occurred at Indy. On Friday the team suffered two tyre failures, causing Ralf Schumacher and test driver Ricardo Zonta to crash. Ralf Schumacher was pronounced unfit to race, not that it mattered- There wouldn’t be a race. For Michelin soon discovered that they had had 11 identical tyre failures, across the range of the seven teams they supplied. With no compromise able to be agreed between the FIA, Michelin and Bridgestone the Michelins were unable to race without putting their drivers and spectators at risk. Toyota, not expecting a race, decided to send Jarno Trulli out for qualifying with just 5 laps of fuel, enough to do his out, quick and in-laps for qualifying and his warm up laps before the ‘race’. With considerably less fuel than anyone else, Trulli took Toyota’s first pole. The following day, Trulli and Zonta joined fourteen other drivers in pulling into the pits at the end of the warm-up lap. Sadly for everyone in F1, Toyota had been right- there wasn’t a meaningful race.
Trulli finally scored again at Magny Cours, with the aid of a fifth place finish. Ralf took seventh rounding up a good weekend for the team. Silverstone wasn’t quite as good. Ralf took the final point of his team mate by just 1.6 seconds. Germany was another troubled race for the team, with Jarno suffering pneumatic problems, causing him to pit six times before retiring. Schumacher took home more points with sixth in an uneventful race for the German.
Toyota were back on the podium for the first time since race five, but this time it was with Ralf Schumacher. The German’s first podium of the season came as he squeezed his team-mate into fourth at the Hungaroring. Third and fourth in Budapest meant the team outscored all of their rivals for the first time ever. Turkey wouldn’t go as well, however Trulli still got points with sixth. Ralf was rarely heard of in the race and finished an uneventful twelfth after messing up his qualifying run with an off.
Another double points finish in Monza, a race which wasn’t expected to go well for the team. Trulli took fifth despite once holding third, while Ralf finished a further place back in sixth. With this Toyota cut the gap to Ferrari to just eight points with four races left in the championship.
Two bad tyre decisions cost Toyota victory at Spa. After running a brilliant third, Jarno Trulli changed to dry tyres under the safety car, only to discover that the car was completely undriveable. Having wanted to stay on intermediates, the team made the decision to put him on dries. Eventually he retired after spinning while attempting to avoid Tiago Monteiro, who incredibly had accidentally turned his pit-lane speed limiter on. Ralf Schumacher benefited from making his first stop just before the safety car came out, and Raikkonen’s tactics of holding up the pack got him into second. Having caught up with race leader Montoya, Ralf made the wrong decision in switching to dries. Immediately after rejoining he went off, but recovered to finish seventh.
Jarno Trulli once again had the pace on Ralf Schumacher at Interlagos, but once again was plagued with bad luck after an engine change forced him to start seventeenth. He rose to thirteenth, but couldn’t do anything about his team-mate scoring a point in eighth. In Japan Ralf Schumacher took pole in wet conditions, however the rain had the opposite effect for Trulli, who made an uncharacteristic spin and failed to set a lap. The team had brought a new B-spec car to the final two Asian races, and the car favoured Ralf. However this advantage was washed away by Ralf’s bizarre three stop strategy, which dropped him to eighth at the flag. Trulli struggled in the race, running near the tail of the pack until he was punted out by Takuma Sato. Trulli was heavily critical of the Japanese driver after the race.
The final qualifying session of the season showed the true potential of Ralf Schumacher and the Toyota B-spec car. And, in truth, it wasn’t a vast improvement on the previous car. Ralf lined up just inside the top ten, with Trulli a couple of places back. The German picked up his pace in the race, and took a fortuitous podium position after Fisichella was handed a drive through penalty. Trulli meanwhile had a nightmare race, finishing fifteenth behind the Minardi of Doornbos.
Ralf’s Chinese showing was enough to see him beat Trulli to sixth in the championship by two points, however both drivers knew that the Italian had outperformed his German team-mate in 2005.
Statistics
| Statistic | # | Percentage | First | Last |
| Number of Grand Prix | 38 | 100% |  2005 |  2005 |
| Number of starts | 38 | 100.00% | 2005 | 2005 |
| Number of finishes | 32 | 84.21% | 2005 | 2005 |
| Number of finishes on podium | 5 | 13.16% |  2005 | 2005 |
| Number of finishes in points | 23 | 60.53% | 2005 | 2005 |
| Number of retirements | 6 | 15.79% |  2005 |  2005 |
| Number of pole positions | 2 | 5.26% |  2005 | 2005 |
| Number of fastest laps | 1 | 2.63% |  2005 | 2005 |
