Toyota TF109

Toyota reveals the TF109 – pictures and video

2009 F1 season

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The Toyota TF109 has become the second Formula 1 car to break cover this year. Toyota used a live online launch to unveil their eighth car to contest the F1 world championship.

Toyota are entering their eighth season in F1. The TF109 is the ninth car they have designed – the first was not raced.

The team finished fifth in the constructors’ championship last year thanks to the efforts of drivers Jarno Trulli and Timo Glock. They scored one podium finish each: Trulli with third in France and a second place for Glock in Hungary which was their best result of the season. The same two drivers remain at the team for 2009.

The TF109 has been built to new technical regulations introduced for the 2009 season. Cars are now required to have much simpler bodywork, wider front wings and tall, narrow rear wings. The changes are intended to aid overtaking.

More pictures and video of the Toyota TF109 below.

Toyota TF109 pictures

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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42 comments on “Toyota reveals the TF109 – pictures and video”

  1. Still looks like someone threw red paint at a white car…

  2. How can they allow those deflectors in front of the sidepods. i hope this isn’t one of those seasons where the FIA can’t police a rule change.

    1. Surely the deflectors in front of the sidepods (as those on the Ferrari) must be coming close to being illegal ‘ground-effect’ aeros?

  3. And Ferrari still looks like someone threw red paint at a car. Ferrari’s livery is so boring compared to other teams.

    Hopefully McLaren will go back to the darker scheme.

    1. I think I’ll have to say that’s a matter of taste.

      Personally I like the way the Ferrari looks and think they tend to be one of the best looking cars on the grid as far as paint jobs are concerned.
      I like the classic look.

      Red Bull do some nice paint jobs too but most other cars look like billboards from the 80s.

  4. I doesn’t look quick as the Ferrari does but you can’t really judge that untill we’ve seen it racing

  5. I’m going to stick my neck out here and say I actually think that looks better than the Ferrari, even with the dull paint job. The lines look cleaner and I think the paint job goes better with the new F1 shape. The barcode on the Fezzas rear wing only goes to highlight the oddness of the high-wing look, whereas I think the Toyota covers it up fairly well.

  6. Its Hammer time
    15th January 2009, 11:43

    What a moose

  7. The car doesn’t seem to have anything exciting at the first look, shorter nose and is less appealing than what it could have been. Let’s see how it behaves on the track, in the end it is what all that matters :)

  8. I thought the nose on this was hideous, so I compared it back to the Ferrari. The Toyota is actually nicer… it’s just a season for hideous noses.

  9. So, the walrus is back… Can’t wait for all the teams to unveil their official cars for this season to compare them all. So far TF109 is the uglier one, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see something even worse than that from BMW. With its square front wing design F1.08B looked like some DDR home appliance…

  10. Not sure about their launch video.
    It tells me that Toyota need a decent sparky to sort out their factory electrics and sliding doors. :D
    It’d be rather ironic if the TF109 suffers from electrical problems this season.

  11. Just watched the video of the TF109 being built, and look in the carpark out the window, there’s a Merc, a BMW and an Audi… You’d think they would have made sure all the cars in shot were Toyota’s or Lexus’s (or is that Lexi??) wouldn’t you..!!

    1. Which ones are the Merc, Beemer & Audi?? I only see Toyota’s and maybe a Lexus or two!?!

  12. whatever the rules are toyota manage to stay the same.
    Even this car looks like a lot with TF105.!!

  13. Wow what a daring livery…

  14. For the money they spent on those videos i could live for a year :P

  15. Interesting, some obvious similarities to the TF108 but a few key differences in a couple of respects beyond the dimensional changes imposed by the new rules.

    Firstly, the TF109’s nose is a lot higher, narrower and it even looks to be slightly shorter in length. From some angles it looks a little like Williams’ unsuccessful 2004 Walrus nose.

    Secondly, the front suspension is mounted very high up on the TF109 chassis and has to be angled quite steeply downwards – compare and contrast with the Ferrari F60. TF108 had this feature too but TF109 appears to be even steeper.

    Thirdly, the back end of the car (from the engine back) looks significantly higher than TF108 – presumably because of the KERS system.

    Features like the floor and undercut sidepods look almost unchanged. TF109 is a lot cleaner and has significantly fewer appendages, although you only really see the difference if you look at them side by side.

  16. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72791

    Ironic that the company which makes the Prius isn’t using KERS!

  17. The front wing is so high!!! I don’t think (sincerely) that i will get used to this… the look is so strange… :S

    I don’t mind the rear wing… but the front win it’s too much…

    But! be honest it looks better than the Ferrari… The livery works better on a wing-clean car :)

  18. why does the toyota have two protrusions on the sides? arent those disallowed?

    1. I don’t think so – Ferrari had similar ones on their car.

  19. If you compare the top-down view of the F60 with the TF109, the Ferrari is much more slender at the rear.

    Also I like the curvature on the TF109’s end plates as you look down on them.

    I’m still not sold on the looks of the 2009 cars, though. The disparity between the widths of the front and rear wings is fundamentally wrong, and the rear wing endplates are too large as well.

  20. I noticed they have no air intake on the tip of the front nose cone.

    I still can’t say I’m bowled over by this years cars but I am looking forward to the start of this years ‘F1 snow plough championship’…

    1. haha. F1 snow plough championship..! Exactly right.

    2. it looks like they have an air intake under the nose instead, on the splitter (if that’s the correct name)

  21. It will be rather boring to see the back half of the field pitting on lap one for nose cones every race.

  22. This is an impressively boring car. I really don’t think they could have made it any more utterly nondescript.

  23. I like the new Front wing attachement , we’ll see many new cars having a puncture this season

  24. I think I prefer the Ferrari.

    Although I still think it’s sad, now that we’ve seen the 2nd car launched with them, that they have the bargeboards on the front end of the sidepods.

    I thought the point of this season was that all of those were banned. I don’t care if the designers have found a loop-hole, the teams should just be told to remove them.

  25. I just took a second look at TF109. I absolutely hate it. Also, Glock and Trulli in the promo video, the whole idea of K1-like promotion- it’s all just soulless, daft and sad… Sorry for being so grim Keith but you have to admit there’s something important missing here. I say it’s passion.

    1. Well I can’t say I find the idea of Toyota very exciting. Speaking as someone who’s driven a few of their cars. They’re pretty soulless, mass-produced and tedious. But I like Trulli and Glock though – I like the idea of an Italian F1 driver who makes wine (surely the ultimate NASCAR fan’s stereotype of an F1 driver?) and Glock has potential I reckon.

  26. Interesting to see reserved driver in Cockpit and Race drivers on Sidepods.

  27. Good to see Toyota committed to cost-cutting by pinching the nose from an Arrows A23 :P

    1. or a Ferrari F399!

  28. all the cars look so much different from each other

  29. I like it. Regarding deflectors/protrusions, weren’t those a loophole in the rules coming from the crash structure zones?
    Honestly i liked the whole website/video, it shows commitment from toyota to the sport

  30. The more of these 2009 spec cars I see, the more I’m starting to love them. If you asked me last year, I would have refused to admit that was even possible.

    However, I must say, that I think this Toyota actually looks a bit better than the Ferrari. As crazy as it sounds, I prefer the Toyota. Crazy I know. Can’t wait to lay eyes on the McLaren later in the week!

  31. @ Keith…

    As an owner of a ’94 A-Spec GT-Four Celica (Alot of modifications though, so probably doesn’t count) I would have to say Toyota’s can be FAR from dull and soulless. Infact, of all the car’s i’ve owned this thing STILL has a place in the garage. Doesn’t get driven much anymore, but I’ll never sell it. I fell in love ;)

    1. Fair enough – but they don’t make the Celica any more, or the MR-2… pity.

  32. Yeah your right Keith, Toyota need to bring some bang into their lineup again. Maybe that Lexus LFS or whatever it’s called might just be that spark, should it ever make it to market.

  33. @Keith – Have you driven Prius :-?

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