Trulli: Toyota Not Ready to Win

The Italian has qualified on the front row for both Grands Prix so far this year and secured Toyota's first ever Formula One podium with a strong run to second place in Malaysia.

But speaking ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Trulli has moved to quell raising expectations placed on Toyota and insists that merely scoring regular points is the team's main target at the moment.

"I think honestly we have started the season with different targets," he said during a pre-race press conference. "Our target is aiming for podiums but mainly to show signs of progress, scoring points and doing a nice and flawless Championship.

"At the moment, I think the results me and Ralf [Schumacher] had in Sepang was an extremely good result and gave a good boost to the team but I think it's too early to talk about winning races. I don't think we are ready yet.

"We have a good car, a good baseline and it is all up to the team and the potential we have to develop the car because we've got an extremely experienced team out there. Some of them, like Renault, are definitely quicker than us at the moment but we are on the way up, so at the moment it is impossible for us to predict when the first victory is going to arrive.

"It may be this week, it may be in one year, we don't know but we are working to top the list and hopefully this will happen soon."

Trulli says that the TF105 still has some weak points compared to the opposition - and fears that they may well be exposed at the forthcoming San Marino Grand Prix. Toyota's cars have traditionally struggled in dealing with the kind of kerbs that feature at Imola's numerous chicanes.

"Imola is a question mark for us," continued Trulli. "It is a very difficult technical circuit where the car really has to prove its potential in all areas: aerodynamically, mechanically and on the engine side because we have got a lot of long straight, acceleration, hard braking, kerbs, changing direction.

"It is going to be a tough weekend, so I would prefer to look forward to this weekend and when we get to Imola we will see, because we are getting a lot of updates on the car. So we remain confident but we know that Imola will be an important weekend for us."