(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-11 11:46

COLOGNE, Germany - Toyota's new signing Timo Glock expects to be following in Lewis Hamilton's slipstream in more than one sense this season.

The German won the GP2 support series last year, after battling McLaren's Hamilton in 2006, and becomes the third champion to graduate to Formula One after Nico Rosberg and the 23-year-old Briton.

Toyota are in a different league to McLaren however, with Hamilton winning four races in his rookie season before losing the title by a single point to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen in the final race.

Glock, who will be starting his first full season after competing in four races as a stand-in for now-defunct Jordan in 2004, recognised at the launch of Toyota's new TF108 car on Thursday that he was more likely to be playing follow the leader when the season starts in Australia on March 16.

Toyota have never won a race since their debut in 2002 and were last on the podium in 2006.

"What Lewis did last year was definitely quite special but he had the package to do it, the car was in the right moment and the team was there to do a great job and he did a great job," Glock told reporters.

"I know that he is quick, I fought with him in GP2.

"But for me it will be difficult to do what he did. We have to be realistic and it's definitely not a possibility for me to fight for the championship this year," he added.

"It would be nice if we could again have a race like we did in Turkey in 2006 (in GP2). When we can do that maybe we will have a chance to fight for the championship as well because then the car will be good enough to fight with Lewis and McLaren."

Glock said his goal for the season would be to take regular points and help the team get back among the leading contenders after a dismal last two years.

The German is looking forward to the battle, having already shown his spirit in fighting back when many pundits had written him off.

He had scored points with seventh place on his debut for Jordan but then found himself out in the cold again and struggling to maintain momentum.

Hamilton's prowess in GP2 in 2006 dealt another blow to his chances.

"It's quite an emotional feeling," Glock said of his return as a regular grand prix driver. "When you step out of Formula One, there are not so many people who have found the way back again.

"I think the last couple of years were quite hard for me to reach my goal in F1. I went back to ChampCar (in the United States), I had a bad first season in 2006 in GP2 and everyone said 'That's it, Timo Glock will not return to F1.' But we turned it around."