Toyota aiming to fight BMW

Toyota have endured a disappointing season so far, having scored only nine points in the first nine races, but the team are adamant that they now have the pace to fight closer to the top.

"Our goal now is to fight with BMW and push to finish races in the top six," said Vasselon. "The pace we achieved at Silverstone is our target. We want our drivers to be fighting for the top six."

Toyota put on a promising qualifying performance at the British Grand Prix, but that failed to materialise as both Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli hit trouble and retired in the race.

Vasselon admits their performance at Silverstone left him with a bitter-sweet taste.

"Obviously we struggled to deliver a race result which corresponded to our level of our performance and unfortunately it's not the first time," he said.

"At Silverstone our level of performance was good - the best so far this season - and we were where we have to be, fighting with BMW and ahead of the rest.

"That's where we were in terms of outright pace, slightly faster than Renault, at the level of BMW. On one hand it's satisfying but we did not achieve a result at the end of the day so that is disappointing."