Glock hopeful on Toyota's form

Timo Glock is hopeful his Toyota team will be fighting near the podium places when the season kicks off in Australia this month

The Toyota TF109 have showed promising pace in winter testing, and Glock set the quickest time in the wet yesterday at Jerez.

Although the Toyota driver is aware that it's hard to judge the teams' form at the moment, he is hoping the Japanese squad will be in good shape in Melbourne.

"It's difficult to say," Glock told reporters at Jerez on Monday. "I hope we are close to the podium and we try to be quite consistently in the points. This would be a good start. But so far I have to say that my feeling is a lot better than at the same test last year here in Jerez.

"We struggled quite a lot more with the 2008 car to get used to the grooved tyres. Now we are back on slicks which makes it a bit easier. And also in the wet conditions the car is more suited to my driving style and that makes it more fun to drive. That's positive and hopefully we are close to the podium in Australia."

He added: "So far it's quite good, but in the end we still don't know where we are, because it's still mixed up. Yesterday (Sunday) Vettel and Red Bull showed quite good pace, but at the end, every time I'm sitting in the car the conditions are so different that you cannot really see a good comparison and where the teams are.

"It's quite interesting and I'm looking forward to Melbourne to see where we are."

The German said he felt much more comfortable in the new car, which is more suited to his driving style.

"Definitely. It's much more in my direction. I spent a lot of time with my engineers last year and they understand more what I need in terms of driving style.

"Last year I spent a lot of time in Cologne trying to put my experience with slick tyres into the new car. So far I'm quite happy with it."

Glock also felt the regulation changes will not help overtaking this year, as he thinks the car is even more nervous than before when running behind a rival.

"I drove just half a lap behind Nick Heidfeld in Bahrain and for five or six corners behind Kovalainen here, and for me it felt the same as last year," he said.

"For me there was no big difference. The car was even a bit more nervous because last year we had understeer and now it felt like the car more unbalanced. So for me it's pretty clear that at least for us it's the same as last year."