Toyota makes 'surprising' engine gains amid unknowns

There is confidence in the Toyota camp after a breakout weekend at the power-hungry Symmons Plains, with Andre Heimgartner “surprised” by engine performance.

Toyota joined Supercars with parity efforts under more scrutiny than ever, with the category recently embarking on historic wind tunnel and engine testing both in Australia and overseas.

The net result has seen the Supra make a flying start to life in the championship, with both Walkinshaw TWG Racing and Brad Jones Racing now on the board.

However, even though Ryan Wood stunned at the slow-speed New Zealand circuits, questions remained heading to Symmons Plains Raceway, a track that highlights power more than most.

The narrative was buried emphatically as Supras swept Tasmania Saturday, with Heimgartner and reigning champion Chaz Mostert dominating both sprints from pole position.

“The engine performance definitely surprised me,” Heimgartner told Supercars.com.

"I think when you have a well-handling car and you get off the corner well, that obviously helps make the engine look good. But, I was pleased.

"I think at some other rounds, I feel like we sort of struggled a little bit. But definitely at Tasmania, I felt as close as we have throughout the whole program.”

Toyota project heavyweight Neil Crompton told the Tasmania broadcast that the "system works", saying: “It’s designed to provide an opportunity to succeed. You can’t guarantee success, but you can provide the opportunity for it.

“Toyota has built an engine and a shape that fits inside those guidelines, so in all logic you should be able to do it.”

The facts remain, however — Supercars is arguably more competitive as ever, and those who win on Saturday aren’t guaranteed to back it up on Sunday. Case in point was the plight of Mostert and Heimgartner, who qualified 17th and 18th on Sunday.

More work is set to be done on reliability of the Toyota V8, which will be put to the ultimate test at the enduros later this season.

Regardless, Heimgartner isn’t lost on the fact that the Supra is still only five rounds old, meaning there could be more bumps in the road yet.

"I think it's just the unknowns, right? Like, you might go okay at one track, but you don't know how that's going to translate as you go to other tracks,” the Kiwi said.

"In Tasmania, for example, we weren't sure about the engine. We thought that was going to be a very straight line dependent track, and we weren't sure how the car would perform. But it exceeded our expectations.

“That’s the sort of thing that you're nervous about — the unknowns. We had a package that we raced with for many years — so did Walkinshaws — so we sort of knew what we're expecting.

“But at the moment, we’re not knowing too much when we go from track to track.”

Supercars next heads to Darwin, where Chevrolet is undefeated in the Gen3 era.