Fans See Toyota's First F-1 Podium Finish Since 2005 As A Sign Future Success

Trulli is a good pilot but I think toyota was lucky this time. All the front runners were held back by penlaty or in crash situations leaving the front open for second rate teams like toyota. This is evident if you look at the finishing times. You can see Trulli was holding up most of the pack which is easy to do on a circuit which has little opportunity for passing.

He said there were "incident involved." How is that lucky?

You remind me of a soccer fan of a losing team during World Cup... makes all the excuses in the world to justify why you lost :)

What are you talking about Ferrari won!

yeah, but BMW is also your boy :)

They're all lucky, every race. Just like how BMW was lucky to score a win in Montreal. If Lewis hadn't rear-ended Kimi then Kubica wouldn't have finished first.

Nice.

I wonder what Toyota has spent in F-1 to date? Anyone have a figure?

That is the figure I was looking at.

So Two podium finishes for $1,000,000,000? Wow what an investment.

I think until toyota f1 team is base in cologne ( germany ) they will never have any good results , not matter how many money they`ll spend . :)

Actually 5 podiums (2x2nd, 3x3rd) to date for that amount of money.

The Agents on this site are trolling now?

Just wow.

Anyway, Toyota has spent about 3 Billion or so, to set up an F1 operation from scratch, including building a wind tunnel and paying R.Schumacher a $25 million salary. In short about the same as what Honda [Formerly BAR], Ferrari & McLaren-Mercedes has spent in this period.

@abcd
Toyota F1, aka TTE, aka Toyota Motorsports GmbH IS based in Cologne Germany. They only build the engines in Japan.
Or did you mean "as long as" rather than "until" ?

Just like BMW winning was due to attrition of the fastest cars on the grid. Kubica still kept his head together and put in a stunning drive to hold it.
Trulli still had to hold of the McLaren of Kovalinen, and the BMW of Kubica.
This podium was deserved for a stunning drive and they got it with pace, on merit. Is it so hard to say "nice drive, congrats" ?

Some people.

@ MichaelTaylor,

Awww, would you like a Kleenex?

we wont mark your words because you always post garbage.

Toyota is just throwing money around (they have plenty of it anyways). If they were serious about winning, they'll win almost every race (depending on the driver's skills of course).

German makes need their presence in these events to justify to people that they are a capable automobile maker. Toyota on the other hand, don't need to convince the public, people already know they make the best cars out there and have bulletproof quality and reliability. Must Toyota be 1st in everything?

Auto001:
You honestly believe Toyota arent serious about winning ? Lol..pull your head out off your ****

I guess it's a big deal cause they broke the drought? Not only that, the race was dedicated to Ove Anderson, the founder of TTE who died in a crash recently. So...good timing

The article is slightly inaccurate anyway, because the last podium was in 2006.

trulli qualified 5th overall for the french gp, behind räikkönen, massa, hamilton, and alonso. thats pretty good. kubica was a full tenth slower than trulli. if he keeps this up then he will be raking in the points.

Money isn't everything in F1

and he still had to hold his position against Kubica and Kovaleinen.

Congrats Toyota and Jarno. Great fight with Heikki in the last 15 laps surely made the otherwise pretty boring and predictable race.

in the last 3 laps it became even better, probably the best fighting, overtaking and defending manouvers of the season so far.

Good work Toyota, i hope they score a few more podiums.

JUGNU

"surely made the otherwise pretty boring and predictable race." ....INTRESTING.

and no Jarno was not lucky other than Hmailton penalty, which he fully deserve all were in regular positions(no penalty or accident...etc) to fight.

JUGNU

Yeah, Toyota won second runner-up. French GP is a very difficult course for passing. Congrats Jarno/Toyota, made last 15 laps fun to watch.