The most hilarious part of this whole farce was when Michael Schumacher wore a Toyota t-shirt at the end of 2003 I think it was. There have always been persistent rumours that Toyota thought they had signed Michael Schumacher and not Ralf.
The story Mike Gascoyne gave to F1 Racing was that he made a snap decision to bring Ralf in at Australia 2006 under the safety car, and it got them a podium. He was sacked on Monday for making a snap decision.
Nope, the real reason was tyre supplier tf106 was build with Michelin in the mind, but at the last minute corporation decide to use their compatriot Bridgestone tyres.
Fun fact, if Massa gets Alonso kicked out of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, Toyota will get their first win as an engine manufacturer 14 years after they left.
Da Matta used to be really vocal about the car saying that the main problem was the suspension and that Gascoygne didn't believed it, investing mainly in aero. And you can see in that yoyo style performances from track to track that mechanical grip was always a problem (monaco, monza). They've designed cars consistently without acknowledging drivers and engineers feedback, if you weren't in a hierarchical status...
Fun fact: Toyota wanted to enter in 2001 with a V12 engine, but teams rejected and the V12 engine was banned which caused Toyota to miss that season. The Race did a Bring Back V10's episode on Toyota's year on the sidelines which gives a good insight on the TF101 testing program
@@easyenetwork2023 they have some quite well-regarded V8s that have been in numerous models of passenger car, they just all carried the Lexus name in the US.
Fun fact : Toyota tried to hire Kimi Raikkonen for 2010 after left Ferrari (the first time). Kimi said no and that helped make up Toyota's mind to pull the plug. Also didn't the failed Stefan GP project try to buy the car Toyota was developing for 2010 when it pulled out?
@@AidanMillward There a plan to do a video about the Stefan Grand Prix stuff? I heard a lot about it, plus the guy kept trying to get a way into F1 years later, but an explanation of the whole farce could be worth exploring
There is a really interesting story about Toyota in 2010. Toyota build a 2010 car but never raced it because the withdraw in 2009. But the story is that when the people who built the car and saw the 2010 grid they believe that there car was just as fast as red bull. Toyota had also given kobayashi a contract for 2010.
I think the higher up's in Japan pulled the plug on the entire thing as they saw little in return compared to all the investment they've poured. And don't think the 2010 would have been on the same level as Red Bull, Ferrari or McLaren, but at best would've been IMO a solid midfield runner. Which is why Zoran Stefanovic wanted to get his hands on it so bad as it would've been a sure ticket for scoring points (Stefanovic was also on the hunt to get the abysmal MasterCard Lola cars in 1997, but nothing came of it). However, I think the other new teams - Campos/HRT, Virgin and Lotus, protested which in turn Stefan GP was denied entry by the FIA.
@@ivaneurope Its hard to believe that Toyota would of been at front as there were a poorly run team on and off the track, but pascal vesselon who is still technical director of the wec team said that there car was very similar to red bull and they had severe upgrades planned too and considering how strong Toyota return to sports cars was just a few years later it could be true.
@@ivaneuropeThey pulled the plug because of the huge global financial crash. They & Honda had the choice of sacking workers and racing in F1 or sacking less workers and pulling out of F1. Same with BMW a year later.
@@OsellaSquadraCorsebmw pulled out the same season as Toyota did. Yes the team in 2010 was still called bmw Sauber but that was because they had missed the deadline to change the name. There was nothing bmw about the car in 2010 as the car had a Ferrari engine.
@@mbgmadbull1141 when I did my video on the turbos I changed the figure twice within twenty seconds to play up to that whole thing. Went over peoples heads but I was proud of the gag anyway. 😅
I loved the variety of F1 cars and engines in the early to mid 2000s. Shame it didn't work for Toyota but also Jaguar and Prost. Their liveries were cool
Jaguar had (what I think is) one of the best liveries ever. Classic yet stunning. Even the red logos of HSBC or Beck's looked great in that sea of deep green. Another one of my favourites was Stewart. That simple tartan line made all the difference. Too bad those teams didn't achieve their goals and went under.
Jackie Stewart had that particular tartan specially commissioned for the team, and trousers & cap to match. He also commissioned a particular colour paint for the car - adding a bit of ochre to the white, to make it look better on TV.
@@Commanderraf They didn't go under, Stewart became Jaguar after Ford bought the whole team; they then sold it to Red Bull and... They improved it. A lot. Prost did go under, but Toyota didn't.
This is basically the same problem that modern Renault has been grappling with: you cannot run an F1 team from a corporate boardroom. You hire skilled, smart people, hand over the checkbook, and let them hire Alonso, or you get used to watching other people win.
Fun fact that I heard Ossi Oikarienen tell on the Finnish F1 broadcast who was race engineer to Mika Salo, Alan later Jarno Trulli at Toyota. "If there was not smoke coming from the engine we would have to call it an electrical problem... even though it was an engine blow out"
There was a race, can't remember if it was F1 (I want to say it was as I think the commentator was Martin Brundle) where during the race a car had a noticeable engine failure, smoke out the back and all that (not a ton, but enough to be easily noticeable), and later on the pit reporter relayed to the commentary box that a team representative had cited "oil pressure issues" as the cause for the retirement. Commentator said something along the lines of "well I can see how they'd have an oil pressure issue, considering all the oil left the engine through a big hole in the side of the block:
I think at the time Toyota switching to Bridgestone for 2006 was announced as being for commercial reasons, because they did a deal to use Bridgestone tyres on their road cars. But I wonder if they were actually given the boot by Michelin. There are claims that at the 2005 US GP Toyota were running the tyres under Michelin's minimum pressure, contrubuting to the failures. (Other teams were said to be doing the same, but Toyota allegedly pushed the pressures even lower and didn't follow the other teams who promptly raised them after first practice when the dangers became apparent.)
It's not only the staff pool which is in the UK, the very specialised supply chain is also overwhelmingly in the UK. Many of the parts teams have to design themselves are actually manufacturerd by specialist suppliers. Being able to go and speak in person to the small company which is going to manufacture your fuel cell, valves & other parts for the hydraulic system etc. has to be a significant advantage over emailing them some CAD files. Especially when there's an issue. If someone at Manor had listened to their fuel cell supplier in 2010, they would have avoided starting the season with a car unable to carry enough fuel for a full race at racing speed and having to spend a fortune producing a new chassis. (The rumour at the time was that the company making the fuel cell, who supplied most/all of the other teams (and knew what their fuel capacity was), gave Manor some tactful advice - along the lines of 'are you sure that's what you want, please confirm the specifications you've given us are correct'.)
@@halofreak1990 Another coroprate factory who has Renault way and involves people in the decision making which doesn't have clue how F1 works and set unrealistic goals. All factory team in 2000s expect Ferrari suffers the same outcome and also Renault 2020s
I like the idea of Heidfeld going to Toyota reliable and definitely had enough about him to win races shame he never did. Funny in 2002 if they had Ralph and Jarno everyone would of gone wow that's a strong pairing as they were in there prime then.
I see a lot of similarities between Toyota's leadership at the time and how they treated F1 and how the current bosses at Renault treat their F1 operation.
Salo said that Toyota hired people from their rally project but nobody from F1 he was The only one WHO had F1 experince. Salo would Have Been The one to win.
What Toyota should have done is go into a collaboration with an existing team. They could have supplied, for example, Arrows, who had the experience of designing cars already but never had a decent budget a works collaboration could have brought. To try and do the whole package from the get go was a step to far.
The reason for that was, Honda! Not kidding... Because Honda came back as a works engine supplier, Toyota at board level (and they made this their official position in press releases, still available online) decided that they would not get sufficient credit for succeeding as an engine supplier and doing "the same" as Honda had done and were looking to do again. Instead, Toyota had to build the whole car and engine, themselves, no Jordan, no BAR - no Lola (as Honda's 1967 win as a chassis was actually designed and built by Lola) - they had to do 'more'. All pride and hubris.
@@OsellaSquadraCorse and you know what they say about pride, it comes before a fall. They could have done the same as Honda did, supply an existing team for a few years and then take them over. The only thing, I think, that stopped them is they wanted to base their F1 outfit out of their factory in Germany, so buying an existing team that was based in the UK wouldn't have made any sense, as they'd have to move everything over to Germany and most of the staff wouldn't want to move there for family reasons etc
7:40 - Always love a good DS9 reference. Blueprints are not the same as a physical component because IT IS REAL! Brother Benny approves of your fandom Aiden.
And then they went to NASCAR (with the Camry, of all things), and basically dominated - mostly because manufacturer teams weren't allowed so they couldn't interfere. I wonder what might've happened if they'd just come onboard Arrows as a sponsor and/or engine supplier?
I love these videos and the series in general, keep them coming! I would say though i think this is a bit harsh on Trulli and Schumacher as a driver pairing. I mean, they signed 2 grand prix winners from teams which had been challenging for the title in recent years. Not to mention that Trulli probably would have outscored Alonso in 2004 if he hadn't been released early.
Think Toyota, think _that_ Will Hoy teammate crash. Think that turbo restrictor, that McNish crash in F1, (sidebar that McNish crash in LM24), how fast Trulli was, the GTOne, the Corolla stopping within sight of the finish for Carlos, the 2016 Le Mans. I think they're cursed.
@@VonBlade In 1992 Toyota had 3 separate cars built to Group C regulations; The TS010 3.5L car used in the WSC, the 92C-V 3.6L V8 Turbo car built to old Group C regs for the Japan Sports Prototype Championship, and The Eagle MKIII used in IMSA with a 2.1L L4 Turbo. Cripes!
Don't forget although the Celica ST205 was an overweight pig in 1995, the preceding Celica ST185 had just won 4 WRC drivers titles in 5 years, including beating Lancia at their peak! (Run by the same Toyota Team Europe in Cologne who would later enter F1.)
@@VonBlade you forgot the Toyota 7 Turbo testing crash in 1970 that killed its superstar driver . It causes Toyota to bin the Toyota 7 project and pulling out from Can Am.
I've been following F1 since 1981 and my first race I attended was Adelaide in 1986 (We did a coach trip from Perth - 36 hours to the Barossa Valley). I've been to 64 races and I've watched races since the Turbo era. My favourite era was when there were V12s on the grid. At races like Spa and Monza the Ferraris (Alesi and Berger) were frequently the first out of the pits. You could hear the shriek of the V12s as they went around the Ardenne of the Royal Park.
My understanding was that Toyota gave da Matta a chance since he won them their first and only CART championship, and then let him go mid-season in 2004 because he was just a little too vocal about the issues with the TF104/B. It doesn't mention it directly in their 2004 Season yearbook (no surprise), though it does hype up Mike Gascoyne...
I watched that season twice and he was excellent - remember CART then was arguably a better F1 feeder series than International F3000. He was amazing there from 1999-2002. Toyota’s CART program has some strange parallels with F1. Took forever to get going (mostly due to the “Toyota Way”) and eventually came quite good (they likely had the best engine by 2000 power wise.) - but unlike there they actually won.
@@palm92 Also completely burned their bridge with Dan Gurney and AAR, since Toyota put most of the blame on their 1996 Eagle Mk-V chassis, even though the Toyota engine had made a habit of self destructing...which it continued doing in 1997 in the backs of the Reynards Toyota made AAR run that year...
@@tomanderson6335 It was also complete crap in the Arcerio-Wells Reynard 96i-Firestone. Honestly the Eagle’s biggest drawback were the Goodyears which got worse and worse since early 1996.
I remember being a wee bab of 4 watching Schumacher's domination wins on TV with my dad back in the early 00s. The screaming V10s will forever be THE sound of motor racing to me.
I had a Motorsport Manager mod with Toyota in 04. I nabbed Frentzen who was a free agent in 04 and paired him with Kubica. Frentzen especially on the back of his Beyond The Grid interview would have been an amazing get to give some technical direction (even maybe nabbing Heidfeld who was struggling along with Jordan...).
As an American one thing that I think really hurt & eventually killed Toyota's involvement in F1 along with the financial crisis of 2008 was their growing interest & then involvement in NASCAR. As far back as the early 90's, Toyota was planning to enter NASCAR & had even started talking to Bill France Jr about entering the sport as early as 1993. Then the Japanese financial crisis of the mid 90's ended all hope of that happening at that time with Toyota deciding to focus their US motorsport efforts into Indycar/CART. However by the early 2000s, with an ever increasing rift between Toyota & CART (which resulted in Toyota defecting to the IRL after 2002) along with a better financial position, Toyota decided it was time to enter NASCAR. At first Toyota started their involvement in the Truck Series in 2004 & then entered the Xfinity & Cup Series in 2007. At first Toyota's success in NASCAR was all in the Truck Series with Toyota drivers winning the title every year from 2006-2010. Meanwhile their Cup Series program was absolutely awful in the first few years with Michael Waltrip Racing & Red Bull (yes they were in NASCAR for a brief period) always being at the back of the pack. It wasn't until Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) became a Toyota team in 2008 that Toyota realized that if they invested more money in NASCAR, they could have a quicker ROI than they would in staying in F1. It took 7 years but Toyota won the Cup Series title in 2015 with Kyle Busch & have been quite successful in NASCAR since then winning two more titles in 2017 with Martin Truex Jr & 2019 with Kyle Busch again & multiple race wins.
Personally it's not just NASCAR and i always felt the NASCAR side of Toyota is mostly run by the Toyota USA/TRD rather than Toyota Global much like how the Acura running in IMSA is run by HPD/Honda America rather than HRC/Honda Global (until their recent merger yesterday) After their failure in F1, Toyota went on to go back to something i call their "roots" being Rally & Sportscar Racing. They now have a successful WRC & WEC program, a GT4 & Cup customer race cars, a new GT3 & Rally2 car currently in development, and not forgetting to mention their continued support in Super GT in GT500 & GT300 class.
What makes this even more bitter is the fact that Toyota quit rallying because this, even thou they had one of the best team of the sport and best drivers driving for them in WRC.
And Le Mans, at the same time! They threw all the money & resource into F1, for the false prestige, where they could have potentially actually succeeded at something....
Toyota really belongs to sportscars, stock cars and rally. And while with Super Formula shows that Toyota can do a lot with open wheelers, F1 is just a whole different world.
I'll tell you straight up as an Aussie you could swear they built their roadcars for us. Old school FJ45 LandCruisers (I grew up in the back of one of those) are now worth a small fortune and older corollas coronas and celicas rusted out decades before their engines stopped. They are a great road and rally builder and it was sad they never did better in F1 - my old man swore by Toyota's and it was only me that went the Holden route! ( If you've ever owned a Commodore you know why we keep buying them)
Celebrate the Content of Aidan Millward Now! I've said this before and will surely say it again. After the first time you waxed 'reminiscent' regarding a previous race in an extinct era of this once glorious sport, I had to see for myself and, well, you took me there where I want to be for every race in F1, always. For the second time, I've watched a race you've featured and in this case, the 2002 Australian GP, and was not disappointed. This is a Classic to end all Classics and I'm not even through the damned race! As if the opening lap's collision won't get you, there's so much more to come. And come. And come... As far as I'm concerned, these bygone eras highly outrank anything we see, hear and read of today. You are our golden gatekeeper of F1 memories. Thank you for giving us a unique perspective. Quite the rare, supreme bon vivant when it comes to F1 content. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to return to the race. Only lap 31/58. Let's go Kimi!!!
You nailed it. A few more choices with drivers, managers they would have been contenders. But they do the unfortunate Japanese thing like Honda and just pull out
I seem to recall they switched to Bridgestone at the last minute because the road car division signed a deal to put all their cars on their tyres and thought the F1 team had to mirror that. The ultimate example of corporate interference.
the Toyota saga is the funniest part of the boring years of the Schumacher era. They were also taking part on Discovery documentaries depicting their suffering into making a front wing that works and as we all know it didn't
Toyota's failure shows that it doesn't matter how much money gets thrown at a project, if the decisions are too slow in coming, it holds the organisation up. Worse still, what progress was made was undermined by interference from Japan (the switch from Michelin tyres to Bridgestone in 2006 was made against the wishes of the technical team, setting them back from the relative high of 2005).
Someone said on here this is likely F1’s biggest ever failure - it’S certainly in the running. I’d also give a shout-out to Jaguar, and my personal #1, the wretched 1991 Porsche 3512 V12.
Olivier didn't win the Monaco GP because 'everyone crashed'. Before his pit stop he overtook three or four cars, overtook Irvine afterwards and then got into the lead when Hill and then Alesi retired with mechanical failure. Had he not done those initial overtakes he would have finished fourth
@@AidanMillward True, but loads of other drivers had been complaining they couldn't overtake him in the race but Panis had. Despite his retirement Irvine did shake his hand the next day to say well done
I think that McLaren was a better example of copying. Some how the Papayra RedBull has not gotten as much attention as the Green RedBull or the Pink Merc (interesting they have done that more than once). The Papayra colored car has not only copied the side pods but the floor and the rear end as well. It is not a carbon copy because that is against the rules now but it took considerable inspiration from the RB19. It didn't hurt they got to see the floor of that car while they were already working on the redesign of the whole car not just the floor. They just got even better inspiration far more accurate than before. HAHA
With all that money, they should have hired Adrian Newey when he became disgruntled at McLaren but then I don't think Newey would have been very happy in Toyota's corporate environment.
He undoubtedly wouldn't have liked Toyota, or any corporate-owned team. They almost certainly wouldn't have offered the career progression he wanted. A major reason he left Williams was he could never be promoted to Technical Director because that position was occupied by co-founder Patrick Head. Williams agreed to give him a say in some major decisions, then broke the agreement and failed to consult him. McLaren made him Technical Director, but again that was the ceiling. And it would have been much the same at Toyota, Ove Andersson was unlikely to be replaced as he had founded the team which later became Toyota Team Europe. Red Bull finally gave Newey what he always wanted. Although he's not team principal (not sure he ever wanted that role), he has a major say in how the team is run. Red Bull Technologies is very much run jointly by 3 people - Horner, Marko & Newey.
Part of me wonders if the reorganization of Toyota's racing division has allowed them to learn the lessons of where they went wrong and could come back into the sport with a fresh perspective and better understanding of what it takes to win. I would like to think that the Toyota Gazoo Racing outfit would do much better and wouldn't face meddling from the board back in Japan, but I don't know if I can say that with any certainty. It's just a shame that the largest auto manufacturer shot themselves in the foot so many times with their racing team that they burned through billions to not get a single win in F1.
The short of it, Toyota wanted it their way and refused to hire someone that would say “you’re fucking doing it wrong, get over yourself, this how F1 works.”
I remember a race in canada where the drivers were told to keep away from the kerbs because their suspension couldn't handle them. Maybe that was around the time they switched to Bridgestone, I don't really remember. That's how bad their car was at times. I was going to say "bring back V12s" when you were giving the introduction. I didn't know V12 was Toyota's original intention. If only...! 🤔
They do need to come back. Being at a v-10+v12 race to hear them start screaming past you literally brought on a rush of adrenaline newer fans never got to experience. Having worked F1 MotoGP and Superbikes in Australia I can tell you they literally sound like Superbikes now only SBK pilots don't have a safety bubble around them.
9:28 the perfrct summary of Toyota time in f1 the reason they evem stepped back in performance was because they made a car which was designed for Michelin tires to use Bridgestone And why did they make the switch in 2006..... because Bridgestone and them IIRC were commerical partners and not for any actual competitive reasons, Michelin by 06 had the better tires (if your team wasn't ferrari) in nearly all conditions aside from damp conditions The Toyota f1 experience lol
Edit - you even mentioned it lol just a disconnect from the board and the F1 team F1 teams need to be way more on their feet than building cars using the JIT/Toyoa methodology and they suffered for it
I wonder if you could do a similar video with BMW perhaps Aidan. Maybe looking at their history in the sport as a whole and specifically the run with Sauber in the 2000s
That one could be interesting. There was likely less corporate interference there due to Mario Theissen being essentially left in charge motorsport-wise and they look over an established team that was functional but just short on resource. The late 00s Kubica also had star quality. Did their sub-standard 2009 car lead to their withdrawal or were they going to pull out anyway? Would they have turned things around in 2010? Was been based in a Swiss valley even more limiting than a German city?
They did withdraw because of the embarrasment of 2009, yes. As they could have archived more 2008 when they would have listened to there drivers and throw all away@@terminateshere
One of the primary reasons BMW split with Williams was said to be Mario Theissen's desire to be a team principal himself. Even without the corporate interferance, I'm not convinced Theissen was up to the job or suited to F1. Does anyone know more about the circumstances of Berger leaving BMW? He worked for BMW motorsport and was a very public part of their return to F1 for 2000. But a few years later he was quietly gone. (I wonder if Theissen saw him as a rival and edged him out? Or maybe he chose to leave as BMW's relationship with Williams descended into acrimony?)
@@ibex485 I think it was he got to team up with his old mates at Red Bull and go halves on buying Minardi, as he was involved in Toro Rosso early on before selling his share. Doubtlessly made a decent sum - always had a good business brain.
Trulli was one of the five best qualifiers and BMW Williams paid Ralf a lot. In crap cars Talent manifests differently. Montoya took a year and a half to get on top of Ralf. Ralf had 6 more wins than Heidfeld who bested Kubica twice.
The Toyota Way was really an achilles heel in the fast moving world of formula one. But maybe with the budget cap in place it, it would work. The cars nowadays are not really an new design at all, more an evolution of previous years car. Maybe the Toyota Way would work as it focusses on evolving and improving rather than new design...
It depends. If your car concept is bad and you need to redo the whole chassis season to season refinement doesn't help (see: Mercedes). If you are in a position like RBR or McLaren refinement is the name of the game.
I don't really think where they were based had anything to do with it as the non England based teams have never had an issue recruiting, and language never seems to be an issue as many Brits have gone over to them over the years. Sauber based in Switzerland, AT and Ferrari based in Italy, and they are not native English speaking countries either, which is why drivers and team members often go out of their way to learn the language even if those countries are more likely to speak English than the Brits are to speak their language. Sauber was a big manufacturer during the BMW era. Ferrari is a big manufacturer (of sorts) and so was Toyota, so I really don't think it would have been more difficult for Brits to work for Toyota and relocate than it was for the BMW and Ferrari guys. BMW was far more successful and Ferrari was winning titles. Toyota suffered from exactly the same problem as Jaguar. Interference from the parent company rather than being left alone. (hell we all know the famous "Who is this Edmund Irvine bloke on the payroll" quote". Of course not being based in the UK does make things tougher, I just don't think that was a factor here.
Jaguar was a manufacturer of both road and race cars both successful. Toyota most certainly built great road cars, and forklifts, and have a hand in crap loads of heavy manufacturing businesses and should have done better than they did.
@@privateinformation2960 Jaguar were not successful in F1 though were they. Also remember that Jaguar won at Le Mans before Ford took over, and their second win was literally just months after the Ford buy out, so probably had no input into the Le Mans program which was run by TWR. During the whole time that Ford owned the company, the road car business never made a profit.
Of course, Sid Watkins had to tell Alan McNish he wasn't fit to race. There's no way he would willingly withdraw from anything. His head's as hard as a coconut. 😀🥥
"When you look at Ferrari from the outside you wonder why they don't win the title every single year. When you look at Ferrari from the inside you wonder how they even won titles at all." - Niki Lauda
As a Toyota driver for many years and a Formula 1 fan with a keen dislike for Hamilton ever since his mug first appeared on the grid back in "07 you can imagine how painful it is to look back at Toyota's tenure in F1. Even more painful seeing how well Toyota's Gazoo Racing does with a hybrid engine in WEC. I'd just know deep down they could have been great if they were in F1 in this era.
Toyota also had the very first Hybrid race car, a Supra that appeared in Super Taikyu and was based on a Super GT car way back in 2007. It was also the first Hybrid car to win a race of any force.
I suppose technically the first hybrid race car would probably be whichever endurance racing driver first tried to get a broken down car back to the pits using the starter motor. xD They actually used to try doing that at Le Mans, and occasionally succeeded if they didn't have too far to go.
Toyota is also a major reason why Mercedes bought experienced Brawn/Honda/BAR outfit instead of doing it the same way with a own team based in germany.
adian don't just call it a fing cartoon it's the reason i own a nissan silva s14. it's called intal d buddy... long time fan we've talked before nice black country flag got one on my parcel shelf in said nissan buddy great content as always. ( btw you should do a little break down on the cars from intal d )
Toyota in fairness with the windtunnel in Cologne was a good business considering a lot of F1 teams have used it. They did get something right! The rest... Baah!
Toyota also spent a shed load in sportcar racing for decades, only finally seeing success when at Le Mans and the world championship during the past few years.
Yes. Nearly killed him. Me and my dad were standing there 20 minutes earlier because we always stood there. The engine came out the car and landed on top of some poor guy. This was fatal.
Nah, they just had to save face in a global financial crisis and market crash. Honda had left & Toyota couldn't keep paying for racing while sacking workers, as Honda stated their reasons for quitting F1 were to lessen that situation, Toyota couldn't look like the bad guys in comparison.
I never understood why they even started their development in Germany. In that time i thought it would be better to use their fasilitics in Japan. Didn´t they even build a complete new wind Tunnel in 2004 in Germany for f1 because the Tunnel produced faulty results?
Easy! Because F1 is, and was, based in Europe. Suppliers, people, most of the races at that time. They also had an entire facility ready to produce cars from the ground up. The factory (and team, including designers and driver McNish) were brought over from the Gt-One Le Mans prototype programme, which they killed off to...go F1 testing... Along with leaving the WEC, F1 just swallowed all the money. When they already had dynos, draughting offices, race bays, autoclaves, engine workshops, windtunnel, a test track, all at Cologne, why not base there? TTE (Toyota Team Europe) had been operating there since the mid 70's ruining the rally team until the late 90s and then the Le Mans prototypes, so it was 1000% logical.
That would only have worked if both Ferrari and Schumacher had agreed that they wouldn't extend his contract for 2007 and beyond. Unfortunately - and Aidan actually made a video about this - Ferrari decided to make sure that Schumacher was forced to either agree to drive alongside Raikkonen in 2007 or to retire from Ferrari (and F1). Ferrari kept him waiting until all the top drives at McLaren and Renault were taken thereby denying Schumacher any attempt to broker a deal with them. And here's the thing: Even if Ferrari had agreed to let Schumacher go to any team of his own choice chances are he'd most likely sign for either McLaren or Renault knowing they could provide him with a competitive car. Toyota's only chance would be to offer Schumacher the same salary he got at Ferrari or even more. There's also another "small problem" by signing for Toyota. That means that Trulli is sacked and Michael drives alongside his brother or Ralf is sacked and Michael replaces him. Either option spells severe problems for the Schumacher family. The two brothers had since long agreed that they would never be team mates at any team. Why? Because they would become rivals and one of them would have to lose... But let's suppose Schumacher signs for Toyota. Unfortunately he won't take Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Jean Todt with him to Toyota. Those were instrumental to Schumacher's success at Ferrari.
Inb4 Initial D is an anime not a cartoon. Didn't ask
I also love the Loeb cigarette emoji...
Oh, this is gonna be good 🍿
Reeeeeee
*Galaxy Brain* Anime is a Japanese Cartoon, and Cartoons are Western Anime.
@@palm92
The power of initial d is strong
The most hilarious part of this whole farce was when Michael Schumacher wore a Toyota t-shirt at the end of 2003 I think it was. There have always been persistent rumours that Toyota thought they had signed Michael Schumacher and not Ralf.
The story Mike Gascoyne gave to F1 Racing was that he made a snap decision to bring Ralf in at Australia 2006 under the safety car, and it got them a podium. He was sacked on Monday for making a snap decision.
Because snap decisions aren't part of the "Toyota Way". God, I hate this stuck-up brand
Interesting, Gascoyne totally knows what he is doing. More fool Toyota !
Nope, the real reason was tyre supplier tf106 was build with Michelin in the mind, but at the last minute corporation decide to use their compatriot Bridgestone tyres.
Fun fact, if Massa gets Alonso kicked out of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix, Toyota will get their first win as an engine manufacturer 14 years after they left.
That jaguar was awesome
“IF”
Isn't Massas aim to get Singapore removed from the championship standings? It doesn't help to just get Renault DQ.
@@gerarduspoppel2831🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@adamhousden6349 . What's so funny?
Da Matta used to be really vocal about the car saying that the main problem was the suspension and that Gascoygne didn't believed it, investing mainly in aero. And you can see in that yoyo style performances from track to track that mechanical grip was always a problem (monaco, monza). They've designed cars consistently without acknowledging drivers and engineers feedback, if you weren't in a hierarchical status...
Fun fact: Toyota wanted to enter in 2001 with a V12 engine, but teams rejected and the V12 engine was banned which caused Toyota to miss that season. The Race did a Bring Back V10's episode on Toyota's year on the sidelines which gives a good insight on the TF101 testing program
Which is odd when Toyota won’t put a V8 even on a passenger car of any kind hardly.
@@easyenetwork2023 they have some quite well-regarded V8s that have been in numerous models of passenger car, they just all carried the Lexus name in the US.
@@jsquared1013Toyota also are the only Japanese manufacturer to have a production V12 car. The 2nd gen Century.
Fun fact : Toyota tried to hire Kimi Raikkonen for 2010 after left Ferrari (the first time). Kimi said no and that helped make up Toyota's mind to pull the plug.
Also didn't the failed Stefan GP project try to buy the car Toyota was developing for 2010 when it pulled out?
Yep. Pirelli used those cars for testing instead.
I thought they used a re-liveried 2009 Toyota for Pirelli tests? @@AidanMillward
@@AidanMillward There a plan to do a video about the Stefan Grand Prix stuff? I heard a lot about it, plus the guy kept trying to get a way into F1 years later, but an explanation of the whole farce could be worth exploring
There is a really interesting story about Toyota in 2010. Toyota build a 2010 car but never raced it because the withdraw in 2009. But the story is that when the people who built the car and saw the 2010 grid they believe that there car was just as fast as red bull. Toyota had also given kobayashi a contract for 2010.
I think the higher up's in Japan pulled the plug on the entire thing as they saw little in return compared to all the investment they've poured. And don't think the 2010 would have been on the same level as Red Bull, Ferrari or McLaren, but at best would've been IMO a solid midfield runner. Which is why Zoran Stefanovic wanted to get his hands on it so bad as it would've been a sure ticket for scoring points (Stefanovic was also on the hunt to get the abysmal MasterCard Lola cars in 1997, but nothing came of it). However, I think the other new teams - Campos/HRT, Virgin and Lotus, protested which in turn Stefan GP was denied entry by the FIA.
@@ivaneurope Its hard to believe that Toyota would of been at front as there were a poorly run team on and off the track, but pascal vesselon who is still technical director of the wec team said that there car was very similar to red bull and they had severe upgrades planned too and considering how strong Toyota return to sports cars was just a few years later it could be true.
@@ivaneuropeThey pulled the plug because of the huge global financial crash. They & Honda had the choice of sacking workers and racing in F1 or sacking less workers and pulling out of F1. Same with BMW a year later.
@@OsellaSquadraCorsebmw pulled out the same season as Toyota did. Yes the team in 2010 was still called bmw Sauber but that was because they had missed the deadline to change the name. There was nothing bmw about the car in 2010 as the car had a Ferrari engine.
You should have mentioned the 2010 tf110, the car that gets 2 tenths quicker every year it never raced
Bit like those mid 80s turbos that gain 50hp every ten years or so.
Last time a heard the BMW turbo had 1600 bhp.🤣
I heard it was at 1700 last time so that checks out for the turbskis.
@@mbgmadbull1141 when I did my video on the turbos I changed the figure twice within twenty seconds to play up to that whole thing.
Went over peoples heads but I was proud of the gag anyway. 😅
@@AidanMillward give it another 3 years and it might hit 1750 XD
I loved the variety of F1 cars and engines in the early to mid 2000s. Shame it didn't work for Toyota but also Jaguar and Prost. Their liveries were cool
Jaguar had (what I think is) one of the best liveries ever. Classic yet stunning. Even the red logos of HSBC or Beck's looked great in that sea of deep green.
Another one of my favourites was Stewart. That simple tartan line made all the difference.
Too bad those teams didn't achieve their goals and went under.
Prost AP03 is in with a good shout of being the most beautiful F1 car of all time
Jackie Stewart had that particular tartan specially commissioned for the team, and trousers & cap to match. He also commissioned a particular colour paint for the car - adding a bit of ochre to the white, to make it look better on TV.
Toyota would have probably been better off supplying engines instead of being a works team.
@@Commanderraf They didn't go under, Stewart became Jaguar after Ford bought the whole team; they then sold it to Red Bull and... They improved it. A lot.
Prost did go under, but Toyota didn't.
This is basically the same problem that modern Renault has been grappling with: you cannot run an F1 team from a corporate boardroom. You hire skilled, smart people, hand over the checkbook, and let them hire Alonso, or you get used to watching other people win.
Love how you described "Barrichello breaking too early and causing eight car pile-up" instead of "Ralf driving into Barrichello".
Ralf and Barrichello are probably the drivers who crashed the most in history of F1, and 99% was almost always Ralf's fault
Fun fact that I heard Ossi Oikarienen tell on the Finnish F1 broadcast who was race engineer to Mika Salo, Alan later Jarno Trulli at Toyota. "If there was not smoke coming from the engine we would have to call it an electrical problem... even though it was an engine blow out"
That sounds like the old joke about the Alfas having an electric problem as a piston went through the engine block and knocked off the alternator!
@simonkevnorris ...and this was because they had customer teams, and it would be bad for future sales to other teams
There was a race, can't remember if it was F1 (I want to say it was as I think the commentator was Martin Brundle) where during the race a car had a noticeable engine failure, smoke out the back and all that (not a ton, but enough to be easily noticeable), and later on the pit reporter relayed to the commentary box that a team representative had cited "oil pressure issues" as the cause for the retirement. Commentator said something along the lines of "well I can see how they'd have an oil pressure issue, considering all the oil left the engine through a big hole in the side of the block:
I think at the time Toyota switching to Bridgestone for 2006 was announced as being for commercial reasons, because they did a deal to use Bridgestone tyres on their road cars.
But I wonder if they were actually given the boot by Michelin. There are claims that at the 2005 US GP Toyota were running the tyres under Michelin's minimum pressure, contrubuting to the failures. (Other teams were said to be doing the same, but Toyota allegedly pushed the pressures even lower and didn't follow the other teams who promptly raised them after first practice when the dangers became apparent.)
You had me hooked at "screaming V10s" 😃
Said "screaming V10s" 4 times in less than 20 seconds and it all made sense
It's not only the staff pool which is in the UK, the very specialised supply chain is also overwhelmingly in the UK. Many of the parts teams have to design themselves are actually manufacturerd by specialist suppliers. Being able to go and speak in person to the small company which is going to manufacture your fuel cell, valves & other parts for the hydraulic system etc. has to be a significant advantage over emailing them some CAD files. Especially when there's an issue.
If someone at Manor had listened to their fuel cell supplier in 2010, they would have avoided starting the season with a car unable to carry enough fuel for a full race at racing speed and having to spend a fortune producing a new chassis.
(The rumour at the time was that the company making the fuel cell, who supplied most/all of the other teams (and knew what their fuel capacity was), gave Manor some tactful advice - along the lines of 'are you sure that's what you want, please confirm the specifications you've given us are correct'.)
Toyota also proved that just because X works in Y formula, it won't automatically work in F1
Maybe if they had no competition like in lmp1 they’d have won trolllolololololol
xD
Funny, and accurate.
Because of Toyota way. Senior management doesn't try to understand how F1 and its politics works.
@@bumblebity2902and they're not the only team that suffered from that. A more recent example is Alpine.
@@halofreak1990 Another coroprate factory who has Renault way and involves people in the decision making which doesn't have clue how F1 works and set unrealistic goals. All factory team in 2000s expect Ferrari suffers the same outcome and also Renault 2020s
I like the idea of Heidfeld going to Toyota reliable and definitely had enough about him to win races shame he never did. Funny in 2002 if they had Ralph and Jarno everyone would of gone wow that's a strong pairing as they were in there prime then.
I see a lot of similarities between Toyota's leadership at the time and how they treated F1 and how the current bosses at Renault treat their F1 operation.
I’d say the 2009 car was probably pretty good. The stillborn 2010 car was evidently excellent but who knows really.
Salo said that Toyota hired people from their rally project but nobody from F1 he was The only one WHO had F1 experince. Salo would Have Been The one to win.
What Toyota should have done is go into a collaboration with an existing team. They could have supplied, for example, Arrows, who had the experience of designing cars already but never had a decent budget a works collaboration could have brought. To try and do the whole package from the get go was a step to far.
Imagine an Arrows-Toyota with backing from Toyota as well with Frentzen and Bernoldi in 2002? That would've scored points regularly!
The reason for that was, Honda!
Not kidding... Because Honda came back as a works engine supplier, Toyota at board level (and they made this their official position in press releases, still available online) decided that they would not get sufficient credit for succeeding as an engine supplier and doing "the same" as Honda had done and were looking to do again. Instead, Toyota had to build the whole car and engine, themselves, no Jordan, no BAR - no Lola (as Honda's 1967 win as a chassis was actually designed and built by Lola) - they had to do 'more'.
All pride and hubris.
@@OsellaSquadraCorse and you know what they say about pride, it comes before a fall.
They could have done the same as Honda did, supply an existing team for a few years and then take them over. The only thing, I think, that stopped them is they wanted to base their F1 outfit out of their factory in Germany, so buying an existing team that was based in the UK wouldn't have made any sense, as they'd have to move everything over to Germany and most of the staff wouldn't want to move there for family reasons etc
7:40 - Always love a good DS9 reference. Blueprints are not the same as a physical component because IT IS REAL!
Brother Benny approves of your fandom Aiden.
And then they went to NASCAR (with the Camry, of all things), and basically dominated - mostly because manufacturer teams weren't allowed so they couldn't interfere. I wonder what might've happened if they'd just come onboard Arrows as a sponsor and/or engine supplier?
I love these videos and the series in general, keep them coming! I would say though i think this is a bit harsh on Trulli and Schumacher as a driver pairing. I mean, they signed 2 grand prix winners from teams which had been challenging for the title in recent years. Not to mention that Trulli probably would have outscored Alonso in 2004 if he hadn't been released early.
it's always a good day when you upload. never mind the fact that it's almost 1am for me...
Think Toyota, think _that_ Will Hoy teammate crash. Think that turbo restrictor, that McNish crash in F1, (sidebar that McNish crash in LM24), how fast Trulli was, the GTOne, the Corolla stopping within sight of the finish for Carlos, the 2016 Le Mans. I think they're cursed.
Corolla at least went back to back in 86 and 87 in the BTCC.
@@AidanMillward indeed but I think as a general rule they've never got near a winning percentage commensurate with their investment in any Motorsport
@@VonBlade In 1992 Toyota had 3 separate cars built to Group C regulations; The TS010 3.5L car used in the WSC, the 92C-V 3.6L V8 Turbo car built to old Group C regs for the Japan Sports Prototype Championship, and The Eagle MKIII used in IMSA with a 2.1L L4 Turbo. Cripes!
Don't forget although the Celica ST205 was an overweight pig in 1995, the preceding Celica ST185 had just won 4 WRC drivers titles in 5 years, including beating Lancia at their peak! (Run by the same Toyota Team Europe in Cologne who would later enter F1.)
@@VonBlade you forgot the Toyota 7 Turbo testing crash in 1970 that killed its superstar driver . It causes Toyota to bin the Toyota 7 project and pulling out from Can Am.
Love the 17min video. Something to listen to while working
You can say what u want about Toyota F1 team, but that Denso Panasonic livery was utterly iconic
I've been following F1 since 1981 and my first race I attended was Adelaide in 1986 (We did a coach trip from Perth - 36 hours to the Barossa Valley).
I've been to 64 races and I've watched races since the Turbo era. My favourite era was when there were V12s on the grid. At races like Spa and Monza the Ferraris (Alesi and Berger) were frequently the first out of the pits. You could hear the shriek of the V12s as they went around the Ardenne of the Royal Park.
My understanding was that Toyota gave da Matta a chance since he won them their first and only CART championship, and then let him go mid-season in 2004 because he was just a little too vocal about the issues with the TF104/B. It doesn't mention it directly in their 2004 Season yearbook (no surprise), though it does hype up Mike Gascoyne...
I watched that season twice and he was excellent - remember CART then was arguably a better F1 feeder series than International F3000. He was amazing there from 1999-2002.
Toyota’s CART program has some strange parallels with F1. Took forever to get going (mostly due to the “Toyota Way”) and eventually came quite good (they likely had the best engine by 2000 power wise.) - but unlike there they actually won.
@@palm92 Also completely burned their bridge with Dan Gurney and AAR, since Toyota put most of the blame on their 1996 Eagle Mk-V chassis, even though the Toyota engine had made a habit of self destructing...which it continued doing in 1997 in the backs of the Reynards Toyota made AAR run that year...
@@tomanderson6335 It was also complete crap in the Arcerio-Wells Reynard 96i-Firestone. Honestly the Eagle’s biggest drawback were the Goodyears which got worse and worse since early 1996.
I remember being a wee bab of 4 watching Schumacher's domination wins on TV with my dad back in the early 00s. The screaming V10s will forever be THE sound of motor racing to me.
I had a Motorsport Manager mod with Toyota in 04. I nabbed Frentzen who was a free agent in 04 and paired him with Kubica. Frentzen especially on the back of his Beyond The Grid interview would have been an amazing get to give some technical direction (even maybe nabbing Heidfeld who was struggling along with Jordan...).
Trulli gave great direction but Toyota listened to Ralf and the car's performance suffered badly
As an American one thing that I think really hurt & eventually killed Toyota's involvement in F1 along with the financial crisis of 2008 was their growing interest & then involvement in NASCAR. As far back as the early 90's, Toyota was planning to enter NASCAR & had even started talking to Bill France Jr about entering the sport as early as 1993. Then the Japanese financial crisis of the mid 90's ended all hope of that happening at that time with Toyota deciding to focus their US motorsport efforts into Indycar/CART. However by the early 2000s, with an ever increasing rift between Toyota & CART (which resulted in Toyota defecting to the IRL after 2002) along with a better financial position, Toyota decided it was time to enter NASCAR. At first Toyota started their involvement in the Truck Series in 2004 & then entered the Xfinity & Cup Series in 2007. At first Toyota's success in NASCAR was all in the Truck Series with Toyota drivers winning the title every year from 2006-2010. Meanwhile their Cup Series program was absolutely awful in the first few years with Michael Waltrip Racing & Red Bull (yes they were in NASCAR for a brief period) always being at the back of the pack. It wasn't until Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) became a Toyota team in 2008 that Toyota realized that if they invested more money in NASCAR, they could have a quicker ROI than they would in staying in F1. It took 7 years but Toyota won the Cup Series title in 2015 with Kyle Busch & have been quite successful in NASCAR since then winning two more titles in 2017 with Martin Truex Jr & 2019 with Kyle Busch again & multiple race wins.
Personally it's not just NASCAR and i always felt the NASCAR side of Toyota is mostly run by the Toyota USA/TRD rather than Toyota Global much like how the Acura running in IMSA is run by HPD/Honda America rather than HRC/Honda Global (until their recent merger yesterday)
After their failure in F1, Toyota went on to go back to something i call their "roots" being Rally & Sportscar Racing.
They now have a successful WRC & WEC program, a GT4 & Cup customer race cars, a new GT3 & Rally2 car currently in development, and not forgetting to mention their continued support in Super GT in GT500 & GT300 class.
What makes this even more bitter is the fact that Toyota quit rallying because this, even thou they had one of the best team of the sport and best drivers driving for them in WRC.
But then they came back.
And Le Mans, at the same time! They threw all the money & resource into F1, for the false prestige, where they could have potentially actually succeeded at something....
Kinda makes you wonder about Audi’s current trajectory doesn’t it?
That was great, thanks, Aidan, It's so disappointing because, I like Toyota products. Cheers from the Pacific West Coast of Canada
Great job with this! A lot of factors here I was not aware of.
Toyota really belongs to sportscars, stock cars and rally. And while with Super Formula shows that Toyota can do a lot with open wheelers, F1 is just a whole different world.
I'll tell you straight up as an Aussie you could swear they built their roadcars for us. Old school FJ45 LandCruisers (I grew up in the back of one of those) are now worth a small fortune and older corollas coronas and celicas rusted out decades before their engines stopped. They are a great road and rally builder and it was sad they never did better in F1 - my old man swore by Toyota's and it was only me that went the Holden route! ( If you've ever owned a Commodore you know why we keep buying them)
Celebrate the Content of Aidan Millward Now!
I've said this before and will surely say it again. After the first time you waxed 'reminiscent' regarding a previous race in an extinct era of this once glorious sport, I had to see for myself and, well, you took me there where I want to be for every race in F1, always.
For the second time, I've watched a race you've featured and in this case, the 2002 Australian GP, and was not disappointed. This is a Classic to end all Classics and I'm not even through the damned race! As if the opening lap's collision won't get you, there's so much more to come. And come. And come...
As far as I'm concerned, these bygone eras highly outrank anything we see, hear and read of today.
You are our golden gatekeeper of F1 memories. Thank you for giving us a unique perspective. Quite the rare, supreme bon vivant when it comes to F1 content. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to return to the race. Only lap 31/58. Let's go Kimi!!!
Aidan, your videos make me happy.
You nailed it. A few more choices with drivers, managers they would have been contenders. But they do the unfortunate Japanese thing like Honda and just pull out
Most of the things you listed about why the 2000s were the best reminded me why the ‘90s were actually the best.
Well done, good one. Thumb's Up, From Me All!!
I seem to recall they switched to Bridgestone at the last minute because the road car division signed a deal to put all their cars on their tyres and thought the F1 team had to mirror that. The ultimate example of corporate interference.
"The TF104 and 104B were a disaster" with the Williams FW43 in the background is fucking genius
the Toyota saga is the funniest part of the boring years of the Schumacher era. They were also taking part on Discovery documentaries depicting their suffering into making a front wing that works and as we all know it didn't
The only exciting thing about the 2000s F1 is perhaps the Death/Heavy Metal scream-esque F1 V10s / V8s that lots of fans still reminisce years later.
Toyota's failure shows that it doesn't matter how much money gets thrown at a project, if the decisions are too slow in coming, it holds the organisation up. Worse still, what progress was made was undermined by interference from Japan (the switch from Michelin tyres to Bridgestone in 2006 was made against the wishes of the technical team, setting them back from the relative high of 2005).
Great video on Toyota F1, at times i wonder if only they had stayed on as a powerunit supplier, they could have even partner with RB.
you had me at "Screaming V10's" sir :D
Someone said on here this is likely F1’s biggest ever failure - it’S certainly in the running. I’d also give a shout-out to Jaguar, and my personal #1, the wretched 1991 Porsche 3512 V12.
Love your work!👍👍👍
Olivier didn't win the Monaco GP because 'everyone crashed'. Before his pit stop he overtook three or four cars, overtook Irvine afterwards and then got into the lead when Hill and then Alesi retired with mechanical failure. Had he not done those initial overtakes he would have finished fourth
Overtook Irvine… but firing him into a wall at the hairpin. 😅
@@AidanMillward True, but loads of other drivers had been complaining they couldn't overtake him in the race but Panis had. Despite his retirement Irvine did shake his hand the next day to say well done
I think that McLaren was a better example of copying. Some how the Papayra RedBull has not gotten as much attention as the Green RedBull or the Pink Merc (interesting they have done that more than once). The Papayra colored car has not only copied the side pods but the floor and the rear end as well. It is not a carbon copy because that is against the rules now but it took considerable inspiration from the RB19. It didn't hurt they got to see the floor of that car while they were already working on the redesign of the whole car not just the floor. They just got even better inspiration far more accurate than before. HAHA
great video mate
With all that money, they should have hired Adrian Newey when he became disgruntled at McLaren but then I don't think Newey would have been very happy in Toyota's corporate environment.
Absolutely. He never would have put up with it.
He undoubtedly wouldn't have liked Toyota, or any corporate-owned team. They almost certainly wouldn't have offered the career progression he wanted. A major reason he left Williams was he could never be promoted to Technical Director because that position was occupied by co-founder Patrick Head. Williams agreed to give him a say in some major decisions, then broke the agreement and failed to consult him.
McLaren made him Technical Director, but again that was the ceiling. And it would have been much the same at Toyota, Ove Andersson was unlikely to be replaced as he had founded the team which later became Toyota Team Europe.
Red Bull finally gave Newey what he always wanted. Although he's not team principal (not sure he ever wanted that role), he has a major say in how the team is run. Red Bull Technologies is very much run jointly by 3 people - Horner, Marko & Newey.
Wait, are you also a DS9 fan?! It's literally my favorite show ever ❤
"People go on about the 2000's as the best part of Formula One"......must be the people who missed out on the years prior to that.
Finally got around to watching the documentary about Brawn's incredible season & it makes Toyota's failure look even worse in comparison.
sitting down with my dinner after a hard days graft, looking forward to watching this 🤤 your videos are bloody brilliant!
A good job was done. With the video. Not talking about Toyota, obviously.
The classic case of the board room trying to run a race team. Similar to how Ferrari is now
Part of me wonders if the reorganization of Toyota's racing division has allowed them to learn the lessons of where they went wrong and could come back into the sport with a fresh perspective and better understanding of what it takes to win. I would like to think that the Toyota Gazoo Racing outfit would do much better and wouldn't face meddling from the board back in Japan, but I don't know if I can say that with any certainty. It's just a shame that the largest auto manufacturer shot themselves in the foot so many times with their racing team that they burned through billions to not get a single win in F1.
I think they should have stayed in F1 and they would have success (and probably would be good under the cost cap)
The Screaming V10s - great band
The short of it, Toyota wanted it their way and refused to hire someone that would say “you’re fucking doing it wrong, get over yourself, this how F1 works.”
They did hire those people! They then just sacked them for saying it....
I remember a race in canada where the drivers were told to keep away from the kerbs because their suspension couldn't handle them. Maybe that was around the time they switched to Bridgestone, I don't really remember. That's how bad their car was at times.
I was going to say "bring back V12s" when you were giving the introduction. I didn't know V12 was Toyota's original intention. If only...! 🤔
They do need to come back. Being at a v-10+v12 race to hear them start screaming past you literally brought on a rush of adrenaline newer fans never got to experience.
Having worked F1 MotoGP and Superbikes in Australia I can tell you they literally sound like Superbikes now only SBK pilots don't have a safety bubble around them.
No, Ireland and their love of rally and diffing/drifting have a lot to answer for with regards to ae86 prices in the uk
Toyota thought they'd throw money at the issue till it was solved
9:28 the perfrct summary of Toyota time in f1 the reason they evem stepped back in performance was because they made a car which was designed for Michelin tires to use Bridgestone
And why did they make the switch in 2006..... because Bridgestone and them IIRC were commerical partners and not for any actual competitive reasons, Michelin by 06 had the better tires (if your team wasn't ferrari) in nearly all conditions aside from damp conditions
The Toyota f1 experience lol
Edit - you even mentioned it lol just a disconnect from the board and the F1 team
F1 teams need to be way more on their feet than building cars using the JIT/Toyoa methodology and they suffered for it
I wonder if you could do a similar video with BMW perhaps Aidan. Maybe looking at their history in the sport as a whole and specifically the run with Sauber in the 2000s
That one could be interesting. There was likely less corporate interference there due to Mario Theissen being essentially left in charge motorsport-wise and they look over an established team that was functional but just short on resource. The late 00s Kubica also had star quality. Did their sub-standard 2009 car lead to their withdrawal or were they going to pull out anyway? Would they have turned things around in 2010? Was been based in a Swiss valley even more limiting than a German city?
They did withdraw because of the embarrasment of 2009, yes. As they could have archived more 2008 when they would have listened to there drivers and throw all away@@terminateshere
One of the primary reasons BMW split with Williams was said to be Mario Theissen's desire to be a team principal himself. Even without the corporate interferance, I'm not convinced Theissen was up to the job or suited to F1.
Does anyone know more about the circumstances of Berger leaving BMW? He worked for BMW motorsport and was a very public part of their return to F1 for 2000. But a few years later he was quietly gone. (I wonder if Theissen saw him as a rival and edged him out? Or maybe he chose to leave as BMW's relationship with Williams descended into acrimony?)
@@ibex485 I think it was he got to team up with his old mates at Red Bull and go halves on buying Minardi, as he was involved in Toro Rosso early on before selling his share. Doubtlessly made a decent sum - always had a good business brain.
Berger seems to have split from BMW around 2003. The Minardi purchase came at the end of 2005.
Trulli was one of the five best qualifiers and BMW Williams paid Ralf a lot. In crap cars Talent manifests differently. Montoya took a year and a half to get on top of Ralf.
Ralf had 6 more wins than Heidfeld who bested Kubica twice.
Yes formula creates more questions than it answers
I knew Toyota spent a lot on its F1 project, but I had no idea it was that much!
The Toyota Way was really an achilles heel in the fast moving world of formula one. But maybe with the budget cap in place it, it would work. The cars nowadays are not really an new design at all, more an evolution of previous years car. Maybe the Toyota Way would work as it focusses on evolving and improving rather than new design...
It depends. If your car concept is bad and you need to redo the whole chassis season to season refinement doesn't help (see: Mercedes). If you are in a position like RBR or McLaren refinement is the name of the game.
I also think things internally have changed a lot as well since Akio Toyoda took over the helm and built Gazoo Racing.
Toyota had one thing going for them; they had a screaming V10
I don't really think where they were based had anything to do with it as the non England based teams have never had an issue recruiting, and language never seems to be an issue as many Brits have gone over to them over the years. Sauber based in Switzerland, AT and Ferrari based in Italy, and they are not native English speaking countries either, which is why drivers and team members often go out of their way to learn the language even if those countries are more likely to speak English than the Brits are to speak their language.
Sauber was a big manufacturer during the BMW era. Ferrari is a big manufacturer (of sorts) and so was Toyota, so I really don't think it would have been more difficult for Brits to work for Toyota and relocate than it was for the BMW and Ferrari guys. BMW was far more successful and Ferrari was winning titles.
Toyota suffered from exactly the same problem as Jaguar. Interference from the parent company rather than being left alone. (hell we all know the famous "Who is this Edmund Irvine bloke on the payroll" quote".
Of course not being based in the UK does make things tougher, I just don't think that was a factor here.
Jaguar was a manufacturer of both road and race cars both successful. Toyota most certainly built great road cars, and forklifts, and have a hand in crap loads of heavy manufacturing businesses and should have done better than they did.
@@privateinformation2960 Jaguar were not successful in F1 though were they. Also remember that Jaguar won at Le Mans before Ford took over, and their second win was literally just months after the Ford buy out, so probably had no input into the Le Mans program which was run by TWR. During the whole time that Ford owned the company, the road car business never made a profit.
I think you're funny when you swear. We need to up your f-bomb limit.
Of course, Sid Watkins had to tell Alan McNish he wasn't fit to race. There's no way he would willingly withdraw from anything. His head's as hard as a coconut. 😀🥥
Screaming V10's woooo!! 🙌 😉
Ferrari have been proving you can't always buy success for 73 years 😂😂
Or that sacking talent because they rightly describe a car as complete shit will get you anywhere.
"When you look at Ferrari from the outside you wonder why they don't win the title every single year. When you look at Ferrari from the inside you wonder how they even won titles at all." - Niki Lauda
As a Toyota driver for many years and a Formula 1 fan with a keen dislike for Hamilton ever since his mug first appeared on the grid back in "07 you can imagine how painful it is to look back at Toyota's tenure in F1. Even more painful seeing how well Toyota's Gazoo Racing does with a hybrid engine in WEC. I'd just know deep down they could have been great if they were in F1 in this era.
Toyota also had the very first Hybrid race car, a Supra that appeared in Super Taikyu and was based on a Super GT car way back in 2007. It was also the first Hybrid car to win a race of any force.
What does that have to do with f1?
I suppose technically the first hybrid race car would probably be whichever endurance racing driver first tried to get a broken down car back to the pits using the starter motor. xD They actually used to try doing that at Le Mans, and occasionally succeeded if they didn't have too far to go.
Also the first hybrid race car was a panoz
@@isthisagoodname6279 It could have been transferred there.
@@isthisagoodname6279 That thing was atrocious. It was rapidly abandoned.
First 30sec. 👍 let's get some likes for the screaming v10s👍👍👍
Toyota is also a major reason why Mercedes bought experienced Brawn/Honda/BAR outfit instead of doing it the same way with a own team based in germany.
adian don't just call it a fing cartoon it's the reason i own a nissan silva s14. it's called intal d buddy...
long time fan we've talked before nice black country flag got one on my parcel shelf in said nissan buddy great content as always. ( btw you should do a little break down on the cars from intal d )
Toyota in fairness with the windtunnel in Cologne was a good business considering a lot of F1 teams have used it. They did get something right! The rest... Baah!
I mean there is always someone out there that needs a WindTunnel so...
Toyota then really has similarities with Alpine today i.e.allegedly being very heavy on the corporate interference.
Even worse isn't Alpine owned by the French government!? At least the Japanese people weren't paying their taxes on a lousy F1 team!
excelent video
No doubt that IF the Toyota of nowadays had a team they'd doing great
Never would've guessed that Toyota used ridiculous amount of money for F1 based on their results until I heard about the money usage last year
They aren’t honest about what it cost. Maybe close to $10 billion
And they would be wrong.
1992-1994 was peak F1.
Toyota also spent a shed load in sportcar racing for decades, only finally seeing success when at Le Mans and the world championship during the past few years.
Tbh they were only winning Le nan’s cos it was just them. 🤣
@@AidanMillward I originally wrote that I my comments then thought, nah, I didn't want to do Toyota a disservice 😂.
McNish was also involved in that terrible 1990 Donnington F3000 crash.
Yes. Nearly killed him. Me and my dad were standing there 20 minutes earlier because we always stood there. The engine came out the car and landed on top of some poor guy. This was fatal.
My older son always says the 1998 to 2010 were the best years of modern formula 1.
That DC hat 🔥
13:09 hey that’s what Harry Kane’s family is going through sort of
Toyota's bean counters must've seen the light and decided to go all in on NASCAR racing the same time they were exiting F1.
Nah, they just had to save face in a global financial crisis and market crash.
Honda had left & Toyota couldn't keep paying for racing while sacking workers, as Honda stated their reasons for quitting F1 were to lessen that situation, Toyota couldn't look like the bad guys in comparison.
I still think that the 2004 Toyota is one of the most beautiful F1 cars in the modern era.
I never understood why they even started their development in Germany. In that time i thought it would be better to use their fasilitics in Japan. Didn´t they even build a complete new wind Tunnel in 2004 in Germany for f1 because the Tunnel produced faulty results?
Easy! Because F1 is, and was, based in Europe. Suppliers, people, most of the races at that time. They also had an entire facility ready to produce cars from the ground up. The factory (and team, including designers and driver McNish) were brought over from the Gt-One Le Mans prototype programme, which they killed off to...go F1 testing... Along with leaving the WEC, F1 just swallowed all the money.
When they already had dynos, draughting offices, race bays, autoclaves, engine workshops, windtunnel, a test track, all at Cologne, why not base there?
TTE (Toyota Team Europe) had been operating there since the mid 70's ruining the rally team until the late 90s and then the Le Mans prototypes, so it was 1000% logical.
Toyota should have thrown everything at trying to sign Schumi in 2006. The window would have been small but they could have won races.
That would only have worked if both Ferrari and Schumacher had agreed that they wouldn't extend his contract for 2007 and beyond. Unfortunately - and Aidan actually made a video about this - Ferrari decided to make sure that Schumacher was forced to either agree to drive alongside Raikkonen in 2007 or to retire from Ferrari (and F1). Ferrari kept him waiting until all the top drives at McLaren and Renault were taken thereby denying Schumacher any attempt to broker a deal with them. And here's the thing: Even if Ferrari had agreed to let Schumacher go to any team of his own choice chances are he'd most likely sign for either McLaren or Renault knowing they could provide him with a competitive car. Toyota's only chance would be to offer Schumacher the same salary he got at Ferrari or even more.
There's also another "small problem" by signing for Toyota. That means that Trulli is sacked and Michael drives alongside his brother or Ralf is sacked and Michael replaces him. Either option spells severe problems for the Schumacher family. The two brothers had since long agreed that they would never be team mates at any team. Why? Because they would become rivals and one of them would have to lose...
But let's suppose Schumacher signs for Toyota. Unfortunately he won't take Ross Brawn, Rory Byrne and Jean Todt with him to Toyota. Those were instrumental to Schumacher's success at Ferrari.
They would have won nothing. Schumacher would have left before 2009 with the rubbish in 07 and 08
Toyota originally had a V12 engine for their car. the FIA stepped in and implemented a V10 engine only rule.