You might imagine that one-time grand prix winner Jarno Trulli would pick the mount that took him to his only success as his all-time favourite car - even more so if the backdrop for that success was Monaco. But the Italian driver instead plumps for the final truly competitive car of his Formula 1 tenure, the Toyota TF109 of 2009.
The Renault R24 in which he scored his first and only F1 win in 2004 was, in Trulli’s words, “extremely good only at Monaco, which is a particular circuit”. On the other hand, the double diffuser-equipped TF109 was “the best-handling car I ever had”.
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He adds: “I tested the car very early and immediately, without having any reference to any other car, I could feel it would be competitive. It was the kind of car that gives you the feeling you can push, with a good front end and with good traction on corner exit.”
Trulli scored three podium finishes on his way to eighth in the drivers’ standings with the TF109, his best placing since taking seventh in 2005. As in that season when F1 mandated tyres had to last a full grand prix distance, Toyota also finished fifth in the constructors’ in 2009. But its success was front-loaded - after the Bahrain Grand Prix in April, Trulli was fourth in the drivers’ and Toyota third in the constructors’ table, only a point behind Red Bull.
There were two main factors behind its subsequent drop-off, according to Trulli. The first was that the TF109, while pleasant to drive, was inconsistent.
“I was on pole position at Bahrain with [team-mate] Timo Glock second, but two races later at Monaco, we were both on the back row,” he remembers. “It was a strange car in that sense. But when it was working, it was very nice to drive.”
The second was simply that Toyota, which was one of the three double diffuser teams at the start of the season along with Brawn GP and Williams, was out-developed by its rivals - notably Ferrari and McLaren, which both outscored Toyota by the end of the season.
Source: Autosport