Niki Lauda thinks Toyota’s failure to produce a race winning car despite having one of the biggest budgets in F1 boils down to a simple problem.
“Logically, if it is not money, there can only be one explanation,” the former triple world champion told the Cologne newspaper Express.
“Their people are simply not good enough.”
Team driver Ralf Schumacher admitted last week that the new TF107 contender is at least a second off the pace, but an analysis of the time sheets from Bahrain last week suggest an even bigger deficit to front-running Ferrari.
Even more embarrassingly for Toyota, the Toyota-powered ‘customer’ team Williams looks certain to start 2007 with a quicker car than its works cousin.
Ralf, who alongside teammate Jarno Trulli is testing this week at Jerez, insisted: “The car is a good basis and if we develop in the right way we should be competitive in the second half of the season.”
