Comments on: How Toyota got it wrong

By: Mussolini's Pet Cat

Mussolini's Pet Cat — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:39:31 +0000

what’s your point?

By: Platine

Platine — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:32:46 +0000

ABC of building a team

Be based in UK

Get best technical minds whatever it takes

Get great drivers whatever it takes

Dont let HQ get in the way, just give them what they need

I used to work opposite Toyota Euro HQ in Brussels, they had a huge banner for over a year with a pic of their F1 car and the slogan “Just Watch Us”, I bet they wish we hadnt.

By: Martin

Martin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 01:31:25 +0000

If MS had have gone to toyota they wouldnt have faired much better as the culture of toyota wouldnt allow MS to do the things he was allowed at Ferrari.
Schumacher was allowed to bring in people to the team that left to its own Ferrari wouldnt have done.
He brought Brawn, Rory Burne, and a host of others that have left the team over time, and as each has left so has some of Ferrari competitiveness.
Ralf never had the power and influence that Micheal did and probably extracted about as much as could have been from the toyotas.

BMW’s biggest Mistake was not staying with Williams and supporting them the way Mercedes did Mclaren in the early days.

By: theRoswellite

theRoswellite — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:15:26 +0000

” Jay Menon says:
November 6, 2009 at 1:31 am

It can be argued that the downfall of the big manufacturers could be down to too much involvement from the Corporate Headquarters, or could have been cultural differences that caused them to fall?”

…?…just a world economic recession, you can even use the “D”word, that’s all….otherwise they would be spending right along as usual…(same for Honda, BMW…Renault???)

By: Ethnic_Tension

Ethnic_Tension — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:06:06 +0000

Toyota is leaving for one simple reason – the world economic crisis. It has hit them harder than any other manufacturer. They’re only one step away from bankruptcy. They’re cutting away the fat and their F1 team is the biggest portion of it.

The problem all along was that they were not passionate about racing, rather trying to sell average cars to average people. F1 was simply a tool to increase their market share. Did it work? No.

To borrow a line from Albert Einstein ‘I have no special talents. I am passionately curious’. The same can be said about F1. Winning does not come with the ability to win, but with the passion to win.

By: wasiF1

wasiF1 — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:32:41 +0000

Toyota had slipped many opportunity from their hand.
Sadly they are leaving when they had probably one of the best driver they could ever had in their team.

Feel bad for Kobayashi.

By: todd

todd — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:42:35 +0000

toyota shouldn’t have left, the should have restructured and become more agile.

cut everything in half (budget and resources wise), keep timo glock and their new fast japanese driver, they are both cheap and fast.

they should have analysed how the smaller teams were going to use their resources to compete, and then based their new model on a similar smaller more agile foundation and work from there.

they could have build a base like the small teams are for the small teams budgets ($40m), and then used an easy $60M more to out-do them on technical resources and other key areas. $100m is affordable compared to their $450m

they have a strong point scoring package already, using the current car as their base and re-structuring their resources around that to what smaller teams would have would put them leaps and bounds ahead of the smaller teams.

By: Jay Menon

Jay Menon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:31:40 +0000

It can be argued that the downfall of the big manufacturers could be down to too much involvement from the Corporate Headquarters, or could have been cultural differences that caused them to fall?

Toyota’s failure could be a warning to teams that are starting from scratch. If you look at it,of the newer teams on the grid, Toyota is the only one that started scratch, everybody else was just bought over.

It will interesting to see how the newbies work out next year.

By: Mahir C

Mahir C — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:02:53 +0000

I was sad that Honda left last year(not now obviously, since it gave us brand new champion team). I could have been sad about BMW leaving if they hadnt tried that cheap trick that saying F1 wasnt relevant to sustainaible future yadayda. I would be properly sad if Renault goes away. I would rather see the name of a car company up there rather than a t-shirt or drink company. That said I am happy to see the back of Toyota, they wont be missed.

Toyota lost because they were bland, just like their road cars. They were never terrible or superb. There wasnt anything on their car which was the best in the paddock. Average aero, average engine, average suspension etc. Much the same with their road cars. They even hired bland drivers so that it suits the rest of the team.

Go to their wikipedia site, most of the stuff is about production system and management crap. Is this a car company we’re talking about? What did they bring to the automative world? They had no passion for racing and I’m not sure they have passion for cars either.

By: Ned Flanders

Ned Flanders — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:02:20 +0000

Aha, so there is more to it than translation, Toyota just don’t want to be associated with ‘fertile rice paddies’.

And obviously it’ll be easier for Japanese to read Japanese than me, but that doesn’t mean that Japanese text isn’t way more complicated than Latin. There are lines going all over the place!

By: Mike "the bike" Schumacher

Mike "the bike" Schumacher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:52:49 +0000

Yes trulli beat ralf in the first races in 05, but people seem to forget ralf beat him overall
and an “unremarkable” panis, what are you talking about?
The man won in a Ligier for god sake!
He was just unfortunate never to have a good car. Likewise Salo, (except a few races for Ferrari when he almost won).

By: Clay

Clay — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:51:03 +0000

Ralf going to toyota for squillions was like JV (one of my fav drivers btw) going to BAR in ‘99 – a pointless waste of time and money. Toyota should have done what RBR have done. Spend the money on the best engineering talent around, build cars which previously unheralded or inexperienced drivers can put on the podium and maybe even win a few races, then the best drivers will come to you – not the other way around. And don’t try and run an F1 team based in Germany from Japan!

By: steve

steve — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:30:36 +0000

Rolf Harris hs a brother Michael who presented seven seasons of a better faster version of Animal Hospital.

By: K

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:36:51 +0000

Even then Ferrari did not compete at the first F1 race but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there at the beginning, they were, and in any case one race does not a world championship make. 1950 is the end of the beginning.

By: K

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:27:42 +0000

You seem confused. You appear to state that the first ever F1 championship race was the 5th race of the the first ever F1 season.

Steve reckons that the first race of the inaugural F1 season was the first ever F1 race.

I put it to you that you are both wrong and that the first F1 race was actually the 1946 Turin Grand Prix and that the 1st F1 championship race in fact was the 1st race of the 1950 season and not the 5th.

By: K

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:11:22 +0000

lmao

By: theRoswellite

theRoswellite — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:54:48 +0000

Toyota’s lack of success resulted primarily from:

1) lack of design innovation (lack of design innovators?).
2) Lack of a very TOP driver….as in mega-quick.

IN SUMMARY: IDENTIFY TALENT, HIRE TALENT, STEP BACK, AND LET THEM BE TALENTED.

(If success results ONLY from being #1, you’re unlikely to get there from being…an extremely competent…FOLLOWER.)

By: Ronman

Ronman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:41:36 +0000

Toyota blushes were deeper and redder in 2007 when they began supplying engines to Williams and were beaten in the constructors’ championship by their customer team. After that Toyota foisted their up-and-coming but inexperienced rookie Kazuki Nakajima on the team and consequently out-scored Williams in 2008 and 2009.

Humm… I wonder if Nakajima’s job was in fact to squander points so that Williams doesn’t outscore them

By: Paul

Paul — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:58:24 +0000

Minardi with that budget would be Williams.

By: James G

James G — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 19:58:01 +0000

Steve is technically correct. The first ever Formula 1 World Championship race was the 1950 British Grand Prix, which was the 5th race of the season. Ferrari did not enter until Monaco, 2 weeks later.