Panasonic Toyota Racing's TF105 race car has been influenced predominantly by the new technical regulations implemented for the 2005 season. Adapting to these changes has offered the team a new and exciting technical challenge, placing an even greater onus on work carried out in the windtunnel.

"The most significant changes on the chassis lie in the aerodynamics area," said Technical Director Chassis Mike Gascoyne, "with changes to the front wing, rear wing and diffuser the most noteworthy. To combat these changes we have placed a lot more resources into the wind tunnel area over the last year and I hope that the TF105 will represent the fruits of our labours."

In its fourth year of participation in the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, Toyota believes that it can finally extract the maximum performance from its 50 per cent-scale Cologne wind tunnel in order to reduce the gap to the front-running teams.

The team took a strategic decision mid-way through the 2004 season to freeze development on its revised TF104B chassis -which made its race debut at the German Grand Prix in July and instead turn its undivided attention to the TF105, a risk that Gascoyne believes will reap substantial rewards this season: "Unfortunately, we were forced to stop development of the TF104B and abandon our original plan to continue the progress right to the season finale in Brazil. Although this was detrimental to us at the time, I now feel that we are in a much stronger position compared to our rivals given the number of regulation changes that we have had to take into consideration for 2005."

Chief Designer Gustav Brunner said: "Mechanically, the car is an evolution and we have worked hard to reduce the weight of the car from the TF104 to the TF104B," Brunner concludes. "This has now naturally progressed to the TF105, but the devil is in the detail, so we have made many meticulous changes to the mechanical side of the car."

Gascoyne added: "Aside from the aerodynamics, we have improved in all other areas of the car by paying close attention to the detailed design. Gustav and his team have looked at the entire mechanical package and put in a large effort particularly on the rear end of the car, something we felt was one of our weaknesses last season. We have greatly enhanced stiffness and damping characteristics at the rear of the TF105. As part of this process, we have also concentrated on producing a lighter and stiffer gearbox."

"Together with Technical Director Engine Luca Marmorini, we have worked closely on the engine installation, producing a significantly improved package. Overall performance has not been compromised at any stage and there has been a highly proficient co-operation between chassis and engine, which is only possible with Toyota's all-under-one-roof philosophy."

2005 also sees further challenges imposed within the engine department with the introduction of the two-race engine rule. After successfully increasing the lifespan of the RVX-04 engine from 400km to 800km in 2004, Luca Marmorini and his team of engineers have been forced to double the reliability yet again for 2005. The brand new RVX-05 model has been designed and built to last for two race weekends, which equates to approximately 1500km.