Think back to just a few years ago when Ferrari and Michael seemed to win everything. Then Toyota was just a glimmer in the car makers eye. What they wanted was not just to join Formula one but dominate. The answer came back. The teams in Formula one at the end of the season always seem to line up in order of budget. That was the dirty secret of Formula one that they thought they had uncovered. Spend more money than Ferrari and you can win. So in came a budget bigger than Ferrari and red cars they even, after a bit, bagged themselves a Schumacher. It was just the wrong one. And now two other manufacturer teams have joined and Honda and BMW did better than them. But to be fair to Toyota for a moment they did build their team from scratch and almost from the moment they arrived Formula one started trying to make money less important. For the last two year Renault have won everything and yet their budget is certainly not one of the top three. The big criticisms for Toyota are that they have no clear race day leadership and their driver selection is mad.

The Drivers

Ralf is the third highest paid driver in Formula One. And last year he didn't win any races. He is number one at something though: inconsistency. He'd blame the car for his lack of wins and sure even the best would have found it hard in a car like that. But why pay somebody average that much money? Why not have some raw talent in the car so you can spend more on the car. That's been BMW's tactic this year and it has seemed to work.

Trulli used to be known as the roadblock because he'd qualify well and then keep everyone behind him in a car that was slower in race trim. Now he isn't qualifying well and he can't keep people behind him.

The problems?

Imagine a problem and Toyota have a form you have to fill out in triplicate to find out how many times they've had that problem even though the answer is always lots.

Outside bet?

Ralf wins a race.

More likely

There's yet another massive shake up at Toyota which yet again has no visible impact because they fail to fire the drivers.