Gascoyne confident in Toyota

Toyota’s new technical director Mike Gascoyne is confident that with his talent and the team’s resources, he can turn the Cologne based squad into winners by 2005 and a serious championship contender in the 2006 Formula One championship season.

Although he made similar statements when he joined Renault, his prediction has yet to materialize, however after a few lean seasons, the team were on the pace in 2003 with Fernando Alonso actually securing his and the team’s first win in the Hungarian GP.

Gascoyne was also at the helm at Jordan when the Silverstone based squad started winning and he is convinced the same thing can happen again with Toyota soon to become championship contenders….
"Having changed teams twice and made them into winners, I'm very confident in my ability to do that - especially with the resources that Toyota have," he said. "I've been criticised for not going on to win the world championship. Well, I've never failed to do that, I've just moved on because another team wanted me. With Jordan, there wasn't the possibility [to go on and win the championship]. I made the decision between Renault and Toyota and for me the thing is to be world champions.”
"To turn the team around, that is not a challenge, I can do that. The challenge is to make them world champions. I think it should be possible to become winners relatively quickly because Toyota do have elements in place that the other [two] teams didn't have. I want to do that very quickly so we can go on and challenge for the championship. We have to be winning races in two years' time - by 2005 - and challenge for the championship the year after."