2009 Toyota F1 Car - TF109
After Ferrari Toyota are the second team to have launched their 2009 Formula One car – thw TF109. Same as in the case of Ferrari the new Toyota is perhaps not as ugly as we may have feared after seeing the first BMW Sauber, Williams and Honda hybrids during late 2008 tests. However unfortunately the car comes again with that boring Toyota style livery …
The team calls the livery new and as impressive to the eye as they hope it is on the track. Well, to me it the same old Toyota livery with a bit different way layout of red and white. Still boring though. For the sake of Toyota’s F1 future I hope the car’s performance is more impressive than its livery …
Toyota TF109 side view
Toyota TF109 front view
Toyota TF109 top view
Toyota TF109 front wing detail
TF109 Specifications
Monocoque – Moulded carbon fibre and honeycomb construction.
Fuel tank – ATL safety cell
Suspension – Carbon fibre double wishbone arrangement, with carbon fibre trackrod and pushrod.
Dampers – Penske
Wheels – BBS forged magnesium
Tyres – Bridgestone Potenza
Brakes – Toyota/Brembo callipers, Brembo master cylinders, Hitco material (carbon/carbon)
Steering – Toyota power-assisted steering. Toyota carbon fibre steering wheel with Toyota / Magneti Marelli instruments
Driver’s seat – Carbon fibre
Restraints – Takata
HANS device – Hubbard-Downing
Electronics – Toyota, Magneti Marelli plus McLaren Electronic Systems ECU (as required by FIA rules)
Transmission – 7-speed unit plus reverse
Overall length – 4636 mm
Overall height – 950mm
Overall width – 1800mm
Overall weight – 605kg inc driver and camera
Photos: Panasonic Toyota F1
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So it looks like the car is even more innovative than the F1 F60, parts of design work like the gearbox comes still from the partnership with Williams? I can’t say if the front wing is really the best, it seems to use some little deflectors, and they curiously flow the air away from the tyres and the Ferrari doesn’t do it so (they do concentrate it over it). After all this preview, the back-end of the car seems to be very round, very fat loocking. Which is the layout of the back power train and suspension? The car seems somehow over-feeded!
It’s great to see both solutions, a front row car and a middle-group car
Tomorrow with the McLaren I do not know what to expect!
Kotenoks last blog post..
Just as i thought, same old thing, nothing changed livery wise.
Thats the same livery now since they started in F1.
I suppose it was a bit too much to think they would actually change it, even just a little bit
Beauty Shots of TF109 is highly recommended to see on this video collection from the Toyota’s launch, the TF109 in the Spotlight.
http://media.tf109-premiere.com/assets/swf/trailer.swf
Kotenoks last blog post..
Not a big change, but I do think the small change in the livery is for the better. There are too many formula 1 cars going with red as their predominant color I think, and white is a color you see a bit of in formula 1 too. I miss seing cars in yellow & green, turquise, purple, gold and even orange would stand out among the field more too and would be colors I would like to see in some f1 cars to add variety.
Still it is not the Red/White colors of Toyota that bothers me the most, they just look too ordinary. They could at least try to spice things up a bit with different style lettering, different shades of red or designs that show some action or theme rather than just look like a plain red/white car.
It simply lacks creativity.
[...] are the third Formula 1 team (after Ferrari and Toyota) to have launched their 2009 car. The team also announced that Ron Dennis will step down as team [...]
[...] of the attention has turned to Honda search for new owner of their Formula One team. But then came the launch of Toyota’s 2009 challenger (TF-109) and all the funny talk surrounding it. John Howett, Jarno Trulli and Tadashi [...]