Top Gear’s mystery test driver extraordinaire, “The Stig”, took Toyota’s TF105 Formula 1 car for a test drive. But not at Top Gear’s normal test track, this time the test was inside the ExCeL exhibition centre in Britain, which will be used for the British Motor Show later this month. A 384 meter straight line course was laid out to demonstrate the Toyota’s straight-line acceleration and braking power.

The V10-powered TF105 was tweaked to make sure the car would be as manageable as possible on the ultra-smooth concrete surface, which meant slick Bridgestone tires, modifying gear ratios, warming brakes, dropping rev limit from around 19,000 to 16,000 and making sure the car’s traction control system was working.

On Sunday’s (July 16th) episode of Top Gear, British viewers will get to see how the Toyota performed compared to Top Gear’s more modest “Reasonably Priced Car”. Expect to see it on YouTube for those of us in North America soon after.

More images and press release after the jump.

## Source: Toyota ##

Grand prix car blasts through ExCeL exposition center in unique TV trial

LONDON - July 12, 2006: In the space of just over a week, Toyota’s Formula 1 activities have taken it from the legendary wide open banking of Indianapolis to a course just 384 metres long inside ExCeL, the new home of the British International Motor Show.

The vast exhibition hall in London’s Docklands was the arena for the UK’s first indoor F1 trial on Monday, with the Panasonic Toyota Racing TF105 demonstrating its prodigious straight-line acceleration and braking power for BBC Television’s Top Gear programme.

As a high-octane curtain-raiser for Toyota’s contribution to this year’s motor show, the test has no equal. Piloted by “The Stig”, the V10-powered TF105 was tweaked to cope with the exceptional conditions, not least the ultra-smooth surface. Slick Bridgestone tyres were fitted, gear ratios were adjusted, brakes were pre-warmed, maximum revs were reduced from around 19,000 to 16,000 and the car’s traction control system was working at full capacity.

Just how the race car performed, compared to Top Gear’s more modest “Reasonably Priced Car”, will be revealed in the programme scheduled for transmission at 8.00pm on BBC2 on Sunday, 16 July. The same day, in the real world of Grand Prix competition, Panasonic Toyota Racing will be looking to build on its impressive showing at Indianapolis, where Jarno Trulli claimed an impressive fourth place result, and challenge for a podium finish at the French Grand Prix.

Last weekend, the Toyota TF105 thrilled the crowds at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, with official test driver Ricardo Zonta at the wheel. The F1 car ran a total of six times on the famous hill climb, with the last run reserved for the customary tyre tread laying ‘burnout’.

Posted in: Toyota, Motorsports, British Motor Show
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