Hard starting, but only once... so far!

[tadc]

Greetings all - thanks for participating in such a great forum.

My wife has an 07 Yaris automatic with about 43k miles on it. So far it's been nearly flawless (despite the TWO body-shop visits it's required due to... 'mishaps').

The other day, she went to drive the car to work and it didn't start on the first try - and it's always fired up pretty much instantly in the past.

She hit the key and let it crank automatically (as usual) and it gave no hints of starting. It seemed to crank at the normal speed and duration.

She tried again several times, and on the fourth or fifth try it started normally with no apparent issues. Since then we've driven the car several times and it hasn't repeated this behavior.

I had started the car a few hours earlier that morning and ran it briefly - just long enough to move it out from behind my car. I've done this many times in the past with no apparent issue.

Actually I lied earlier - just ONCE it did take an extra second or so of cranking to start. But that was months/years ago...

Any thoughts on what the car might be trying to tell us(other than it's just gone out of warranty)? :) Something flaky with whatever sensor that tells the car to fire the plugs? Dirty fuel filter? Some kind of air leak in the fuel system?

Thanks for any thoughts.