Toyota to test revised car next month

The team launched their new car in November but always planned to give it a major revamp before the start of the season.

That aero package, which will make the car look significantly different from the current version, will now likely run at both Barcelona and Vallelunga in the week beginning February 20.

Technical director Mike Gascoyne said: "There may be one set in Vallelunga, but there will be both cars (with it) in Barcelona with the race drivers."

Although the revamp has been viewed in some quarters as an expensive approach to introducing a new car, Gascoyne is adamant that it has been quite a cost effective way of building up to the season.

"It would be very expensive if you launched a car now and then re-bodyworked it in a month's time," he said. "We launched the car in November and we are going to re-bodywork it in February.

"If you look at the mileage we are going to do, you are going to use up a lot of components to do that mileage so you would be throwing away components anyway.

"So from that point of view as long as you do it sensibly and you are not throwing away bits that have not done all their mileage then it should not cost you that much more."

Despite believing that the approach of launching the car in November and revamping it prior to the start of the season was perfect for 2006, Gascoyne believes that the team are unlikely to repeat the plan at the end of this year.

"Probably not," he said. "We have obviously got a new car coming out for Monaco and I think probably the plan at the moment for the TF107 is to have a January roll-out. It will again be re-bodyworked, but I don't think we will roll-out for winter testing like we did this time."