The car in front...

"Okidoke, it's 10:30 - I must go to bed..."

Ralf Schumacher did not always have the best of relationships with his former team - that most English of establishments, Williams Grand Prix Engineering Ltd - but he speaks affectionately of many with whom he worked there, as his throwaway remark illustrated. So many times one has heard Patrick Head say, "Okidoke..."

Over dinner in Barcelona, Ralf was a touch wistful as he spoke of his six seasons with Frank's team. "In 2001," he said, "Juan [Montoya] and I won four races, and I really thought that was the start, but..."

Over the last few seasons, it must be said, the form of Williams-BMW has been extremely patchy. There have been brief periods - as in the summer of 2003, when Montoya and Schumacher won four of six grands prix - when the team's performances reminded one of the late 1980s and '90s, when five drivers won world championships as Williams drivers, but, as Frank and Patrick admit, in recent years consistent competitiveness has not been there. JPM's victory at Interlagos last October was the team's first in more than a year. After 2004 both drivers departed, and there was a feeling it was probably best for all concerned.

It's a fact, too, that the relationship between Williams and BMW has been less relaxed than that with Renault. For a long time there has been a belief that Bee Em Vee wants its own team - and, emphatically, that the autocratic Mario Theissen sees himself as a team principal - and obviously taking over Sauber would be a cheaper proposition than buying Williams, even if FW and Patrick were prepared to sell.

At Imola Peter Sauber said he had no wish to run an F1 team for the rest of his life, and many suggest that the foundations of a BMW buy-out have been laid. Should that come to be, it's not impossible that a relationship with Williams would continue, but seems - to me, at least - unlikely, in which case where would Frank go for an engine? Cosworth? Perhaps, but that would be a commercial deal, and no serious F1 team would wish to be paying for its engines. No, a more likely solution would be Honda, Williams' engine partner in the mid-'80s, or Toyota, currently selling motors to Jordan.

It has always been said of Toyota, in motor sport matters, that, 'They always get there in the end'. Success, in other words, may not show up overnight, but throw enough money, time and effort at something, be it CART, IRL, WRC, or whatever, and eventually it will.

Prior to this year, there had been increasing doubts that F1 would conform to this pattern. Through 2001 Toyota carried out the most intensive pre-entry testing programme the sport has known, but in its first three seasons of racing results were, to put it kindly, somewhat short of expectations. Through last winter, indeed, rumours persisted that the management in Japan was growing highly impatient, and the suggestion was that if things did not swiftly begin to turn around, the plug on F1 would be pulled.

Like any major manufacturer, Toyota sees the technological benefits of involvement with motorsport, but, more than most, it is also extremely aware of its marketing potential. With the best will in the world, why else would it have its sights firmly set on NASCAR? I remember a Toyota man telling me, with considerable mirth, of the difficulties in finding somewhere in Japan still capable of casting blocks in iron, and who knows how many years it is since the company last had to think about carburetors?

Toyota, already involved in NASCAR's Truck Division, will compete in the Nextel Cup in 2007, and why? Because the phenomenal success of NASCAR continues to mushroom, and because there has long been clear evidence that its fans, far more than in any other form of motorsport, are influenced in their choice of road car by what they see on the race track. 'Win on Sunday, sell on Monday', went the old slogan in the 1960s.

It may seem heresy to some that other than an American car should compete at Talladega or Charlotte or wherever, but go to a NASCAR race, have a scan over the car parks, and tell me what good ol' boys are buying these days. There may once have been an absolute predominance of the products of Detroit, but it's not like that now. Which is why we shall soon see Toyota - and perhaps Honda - competing in the Daytona 500.

Given that 'Indycar racing' has chosen to split itself down the middle, thereby converting a great series into two middling ones, Toyota is expected soon to wash its hands of the IRL, thus concentrating its American focus on NASCAR. Throw in the increasingly potent F1 programme, and both major bases - the two most successful racing series on earth - are covered.

It may well take time for Toyota to succeed in NASCAR, which is every bit as 'specialised' as F1, and there could again be a relatively low-key beginning, devoid of 'star' drivers, and so on, but that has been the company's way. In F1, it began with Mika Salo and Allan McNish as test drivers, dispensed with them after a single season of racing in 2002, took on Olivier Panis and Cristiano da Matta for a couple of years, and has now progressed to Jarno Trulli and Schumacher Jr. Similarly, Gustav Brunner was succeeded, as technical director, by Mike Gascoyne.

And now the results are starting to come. Five races in, Trulli lies second to Alonso in the world championship, and, with 40 points, the team is headed, in the constructors' championship, only by Renault. At this time last year, Toyota didn't have a point on the board, and by the end of it had a grand total of nine.

For some curious reason, Toyotas seem not to figure very prominently on our TV screens at the moment, but for much of the Spanish Grand Prix Trulli and Schumacher were in fierce combat, and they finished third and fourth. As of now, the cars may not be a match for Renault or McLaren on pure pace, but their reliability is a match for anything, and neither Jarno nor Ralf regret their decisions to sign.

A couple of years ago, a leading F1 team principal, standing near a Toyota transporter, said something that has stuck in my mind: "Down the road it's not Ferrari I fear. It's these people..."

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- The Autosport.com Team

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