The German, aided by reliability problems for others ahead of him, drove steadily through the field, showing Toyota were perhaps not as far from the pace as they appeared the weekend before in Bahrain.

Tomita had described that opening race as “shocking” for his team, but was encouraged by the display in Sepang.

“That was obviously a much better performance over the whole weekend and a strong performance in the race thanks to a significant improvement in the combination of our car and our Bridgestone tyres,” he said.

“That gives the whole team a very high motivation, which is the most important thing that we could gain here.

“The team deserved that result for all their hard work, but now we must start pushing to get on the podium.

“We will test further next week in preparation for the Australian Grand Prix and then the start of the European season. We will keep pushing hard as we seek further success.”

Tomita, who presides over the team with reputedly the biggest budget in the pitlane, had been livid after 14th and 16th-place finishes in Bahrain, and called for an inquest.

That meant technical director Mike Gascoyne staying behind in the factory in Cologne to work on improvements rather than travelling to the Far East.

The Englishman, though, was also heartened by what he saw in the Malaysian heat and claimed Toyota had Ferrari in their sights.

“Clearly we managed to get the tyres working better this weekend,” said Gascoyne.

“If you look at Ralf’s pace in the second half of the race, when he was in free air, he was very, very strong.

“We’ve just got to do it from the front of the grid, not from the back.

“But if you look at our race pace, it’s very close to Ferrari’s and I’m sure they think they’re going to score some podiums and so should we.”

Former Williams driver Schumacher had been forced into using the early part of the weekend as a troubleshooting exercise, leading to the problem with his over-used engine.

With the sport in a phase of genuine competitiveness at the front of the grid, the German was not quite as confident that Toyota were back as a force just yet.

“It was a difficult race and of course that does not mean that we have solved all our problems,” he said.

“We have the cooler weather of Melbourne next so we will be testing in Paul Ricard next week to be as prepared as possible for that.

“We hope to be able to keep up this level of pace at the coming races. We have to keep fighting and try to push for the podium again as soon as possible.”

Schumacher’s team-mate Jarno Trulli, who had earned Toyota’s inaugural podium in Formula One in Malaysia a year ago, was hampered by a damaged car, but still came home ninth.