March 23, 2001: Introduction of the First Toyota F1 Car

The Toyota F1 car was designed and built from the ground up by the dedicated professionals at Toyota Motorsports GmbH ("TMG") over the span of 19 months at the TMG base of operations in Cologne, Germany. The first generation test car featured a newly developed V10 (RVX-01) engine. Ove Andersson, TMG president at the time, said, "A team can never win by simply investing large amounts of capital. That has been proven many times in the past. The key to success is the overall strength, effort and dedication of the team. Success requires time. It is never an easy path to tread."

TMG chairman, Mr. Tsutomu Tomita said, "The F1 project is the culmination of the enthusiasm and dedication of our young staff and professionals. In short, the F1 project has resulted from Toyota's management accepting the challenge laid down by the younger generation of employees and customers. We know that the F1 series is a completely new experience for Toyota, whereas many other car manufacturers have been in F1 for a long time. One of the major motivations for Toyota to take on this new challenge was to make an opportunity to spread the Toyota corporate image around the world."

After the unveiling, drivers Mika Salo and Allan McNish began an odyssey of testing the car at Paul Ricard and eleven other F1 circuits around the world, logging more than 3,000 laps and a total of 20,967km over the span of eight months.

During the initial testing stages, the team met with several setbacks, including a Mika Salo crash. But the testing process smoothed out as car, driver and team put on the miles, and a new engine was installed in September of the same year. At the end of the year, TMG was ready to introduce the TF102.