Formula One's newest team, Toyota won the opening race of the 2002 season when it became the first team to unveil its 2002 challenger at its Cologne headquarters on December 17. In front of as big an audience of sponsors, suppliers and media that any team could wish for, Mika Salo and debutant teammate Allan McNish, the oldest pairing in Grand Prix racing, unveiled the brand new TF102 challenger.

This is an intriguing newcomer if, for no other reason, than its make-up. Team principal Ove Andersson, engine man Norbert Kreyer and chief engineer Dago Rohrer all come from rallying backgrounds, where they won titles. They then tackled Le Mans and finished second, and are now in their third incarnations as a Grand Prix team. This is another first for the team.

Like Sauber, Toyota is in a bit of a Formula One wilderness, and either Toyota had to hire people from Formula One, and pay their relocation expenses, or hire them locally from the world of sports car racing - the Kremer team and Ford Germany would be closest - or stick with the same people that they hired in rallying - which is what they did. So the team has stayed about the same - with the addition of designer Gustav Brunner who replaced Andre de Cortanze.

The new car is the product of the 550 personnel from Toyota's 'United Nations of Formula One' comprising some 30 nationalities but not counting the contribution from Toyota's Japanese technical departments. Chief designer Gustav Brunner said the new car was entirely different to the test car that the team had used to gain experience throughout 2001. Indeed, he went out of his way to emphasise that it was a conservative rather than innovative design.

With the team's wind tunnel having just been commissioned, but Rene Hilhorst's aerodynamic team still using Lola's facilities, aerodynamics is expected to be the major development area in 2002. But the team's ambitions remain modest, said team principal Ove Andersson. "We just want to qualify for every race, to finish as many races and to learn about Formula One and to build up the team to be a team in the true sense of the world."

Indeed, as far as many principals were concerned, this would be the main area which would require development over the years. There are many areas in which the team seems already to be ahead of some of its potential rivals. They have major sponsorship from three companies new to Formula One: Panasonic, the title sponsor, Wella beauty products and AOL Time Warner. They have a massive infrastructure covering all the areas necessary to tackle Formula One at the highest level.

But even though half the team's personnel have worked together in the World Rallying Championship and its Le Mans programme in 1998/1999, Andersson and others still believe that they have to come together as a team. Andersson heads it as he has from its rallying days, but there is no technical director. Dago Rohrer is technical manager, F1 chassis, while Norbert Kreyer is general manager of the engine department and both he and Brunner report to Rohrer, whose background was in rallying with Audi and Toyota.

While Salo and McNish have been announced as drivers for the team, no test driver was announced. This was in spite of the presence of a trio of young drivers which will be brought on in Europe.

Toyota had already completed 20,967 kilometers since the launch of its test car last March, to November 2001, in 3000 laps. They have tested at 11 Grand Prix circuits, including Sepang and Suzuka, as well as their home base at Circuit Paul Ricard in France. Their testing has included a whole weekend at the Austrian A1 Ring running according to a Grand Prix schedule. Their preparations have been as thorough as one could hope. However, Brunner said of the test car that "I saw several things I didn't like and it was overweight." The new car was completely different in every area.

What the team was really looking forward to was running with other teams and they didn't have to wait long. Although the old car was briefly used for testing at Ricard, the team were soon concentrating solely on the TF102. Mid-January, Salo was within a tenth of Takuma Sato in a Jordan, de la Rosa and Irvine in Jaguars and Trulli in an old Benetton.

There were one or two teething problems in late January, but generally speaking, the car was fairly reliable if not particularly quick. Although Salo returned to Ricard in early February, the test effort seemed to tail off as the season approached.

Everyone says that it's going to be very difficult for Toyota to be competitive, and although they weren't totally the slowest - Minardi's relative debutants had that dubious honour when the car was still fairly new - Toyota were never particularly quick, and certainly rarely halfway up the order. But reliability and testing could reap its benefits, although Brunner may pay the price for his conservative approach!

Bob Constanduros