Toyota president John Howett has said that in his view the Panasonic Toyota Racing team has had an 'encouraging' start to the 2008
FIA F1 World Championship season.
To date the Cologne-based outfit has scored 9 points - all thanks to
Jarno Trulli - and the squad currently sits in sixth place in the manufacturers', equal on points with
Renault.
While the event in Turkey last weekend wasn't so good, and Trulli and
Timo Glock only finished 10th and 13th, Howett believes things are on the up and that the main reason they are doing well is because the TF108 is simply superior to its predecessor.
"Our results this season are an improvement on 2007 because the car is basically better, there is no question about that," he confirmed.
"The ideal operating window on the TF107 was small and getting the car set-up for optimum performance was difficult at a lot of tracks last year. When we got it set-up in that zone we looked pretty good, better than our results at the end of the season suggested in fact.
"This year's car has a much wider operating window and this helps the drivers and the engineers to get the most out of it. oth drivers saw this immediately at the Bahrain test, when they felt the car was more stable and drivable.
"All-in-all the start to the season has been quite encouraging. Over the first five races the car has been relatively quick, and we have had some positive race results.
"Jarno is very positive about the baseline of the TF108 while Timo has shown a lot of flashes of high performance and future potential and it is obvious he is becoming more relaxed with the car as the season progresses.
"However in Turkey we didn't get the result we expected and now we have to fight to find more performance from the car."
Pressed on if he thinks Toyota will be able to close the gap to
Ferrari, McLaren-Mercedes and
BMW Sauber, he added that in his view the entire midfield pack, namely them,
Red Bull Racing, Renault and
Williams, is inching closer race by race.
