Gascoyne aims for Toyota triumph

Toyota design chief Mike Gascoyne has detailed his plans for turning the Formula One newcomers into world champions.

The Germany-based team only entered the sport’s elite in 2002 and have since made steady progress.

But Toyota have lofty ambitions of conquering the world and turned to former Renault designer Gascoyne to strengthen their technical department ahead of the new season.

Gascoyne has been charged with turning Toyota from a respectable mid-grid outfit into the best in the world, and he admits next year will come too soon for his input to make much of a difference.

“Hopefully the new car will be competitive from an early stage so I won’t need to have too much influence on it,” he said.

“But the important thing is to set Toyota up as a team that is going to win the world championship in the future.

“We are not to going to necessarily achieve that by focussing on the 2004 car - I think we will be looking more long term.”

Gascoyne has to overcome a perceived location problem, with Toyota based in Cologne, far away from the technical centre of the sport in the English midlands.

Ferrari aside, teams from mainland Europe have struggled in recent seasons with the likes of Prost and Minardi facing crippling cash shortages and Switzerland’s Sauber team hardly a threat to the front-runners.

In contrast, McLaren and Williams have – along with Ferrari – monopolised Formula One in recent decades from bases in Woking and Didcot respectively.

But Gascoyne said: “Ultimately, with modern communications, I don’t think that it makes a big difference whether a Formula One team is based in the UK, Germany or anywhere else.

“But short term it can be a problem because there are people that simply would not want to relocate. Generally, though, I don’t think it is a problem at all.”

Gascoyne is confident he will adjust to the new surroundings, where he will work alongside former Minardi designer Gustav Brunner.

“I’ve known Gustav for many years and we always got on very well together,” he added.

“We both understand our respective roles, which are very complementary, so I anticipate having absolutely no problems.

“I think when you change teams, as I have done in the past, everything is familiar but at the same time everything is slightly different.

“I don’t think adjusting to the team will take me very long at all. Maybe it will take a bit more time for the team to adjust to me, but overall I certainly don’t envisage it being a problem.”