Toyota has set its sights on forgetting the heartache of its agonising defeat in the 24 Hours of Le Mans by bouncing back in this weekend's FIA World Endurance Championship round at the Nurburgring.
Toyota's #5 car came within 10 minutes of winning the marque's first overall title at Le Mans before a turbo failure allowed Porsche to snatch victory on the final lap.
This weekend's race at the Nurburgring acts as Toyota's first home race of the season, the track being just an hour away from its European base in Cologne.
The team will take a revised aerokit for its TS050 Hybrid to the Nurburgring, opting for a high-downforce package to reflect the tight and short nature of the track.
"After putting the heartache of Le Mans behind me, I am definitely more fired up than ever to get back behind the wheel of our TS050 Hybrid," Anthony Davidson of the #5 car said.
"The Nurburgring is a circuit I really enjoy and hopefully the car will be as competitive as it was in the last two races. It would also be a nice boost for the team to be able to win so close to home.
"Having so many colleagues from Cologne visiting us at the track makes this a really special race for us. The great atmosphere and team spirit makes me even more eager to go racing this weekend."
Davidson's teammate Sebastien Buemi arrives in Germany off the back of his Formula E title victory in London two weeks ago, and believes getting back behind the wheel for Toyota will help to ease some of the Le Mans heartache.
"I’m very much looking forward to the Nurburgring; it’s good that it is pretty close to Le Mans and we can go back racing," Buemi said.
"I think we will be able to fight again for the win. We need to look positively on the first part of the season. Out of the three races we were leading two of those until very late so I’m very confident that we will have a good performance level at Nurburgring as well.
"We all know how hard Le Mans was but this is behind us and it’s time to look to the rest of the season. We definitely want to win our first race of the year."
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