Posted January 10, 2008 and the third 2008 car to launch is the.... Toyota TF108 Vasselon: New Toyota a 'departure' Toyota’s chassis chief Pascal Vasselon says the new TF108 is a departure from the team’s recent cars. After making an apparent breakthrough in 2005, the Japanese manufacturer slipped back into the midfield in ’06 and ’07, and team principal Tadashi Yamashina recently admitted he has two years to convince the Toyota board that its investment in F1 is worthwhile. To this end, Vasselon says his design team adopted a completely new aerodynamic approach with the TF108. “I think it’s quite obvious the aerodynamic concept has changed,” he said at the launch of the new car in Cologne on Thursday. “The TF107 was an evolution of the TF106; this new car is a departure from recent Toyotas.” The new car features a longer wheelbase and more sharply undercut sidepods than the TF107 (designed to accelerate the air faster along the lower bodywork to the rear wing and thereby increase downforce). Overall, Vasselon says the aim of the aero changes has been to achieve a more consistent balance and a larger ‘sweet spot’ than on the TF107, which had a narrow set-up window and was extremely sensitive to pitch and ride height changes over a lap. “The aerodynamic philosophy is geared towards minimising aero and balance variations over the lap, thereby producing a more driveable and stable car,” he said. “A fundamental change is the wheelbase, which is now longer. “The main reason for this is to achieve more stability, but secondly we also expect greater aerodynamic development potential, giving our aerodynamicists wider surfaces and more space to play with.” Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted January 15, 2008 Interesting that BMW have the old McLaren style horns, while McLaren actually dropped them Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
