Toyota hasn’t exactly enhanced its reputation, either as a race team or as a manufacturer, with its efforts in Formula One. The teams results have been, to put it mildly, dismal. They’ve now shed Ralf Schumacher and bid goodbye to one of their associate sponsors, Kingfisher Airlines.
It the team about to leave Formula One?
No, but it may not be staying very much longer.
" Panasonic Toyota Racing to become stronger, it is more important to improve the level of organization in general rather than to rely on the power of one person. My job is to mobilize the resources to achieve that. I have been given two more years. So, we will work and fight to make sure we prove ourselves in the 2008 season."
The words are those of the Toyota Formula One team manager, Tadashi Yamashina. The two year timetable is clear enough. Do they refer to him, or to the team?
The team has gone nowhere in five years. Yet there seems to be no basic change in the way the team is structured or operates. There has been no spectacular new hire, such as the Ross Brawn addition to the Honda team. Nor does there appear to be a desire to hire a first-line driver, an Alonso or equivalent. There seems, instead, to be a sense of destined mediocrity.
But there does seem to be some dissention brewing. Team Manager Richard Creagan is quoted as saying that: "Formula one is a very difficult business, I think as I said many times before we have to find a good balance between Formula 1 way and Toyota Way, which I believe gives us as an advantage over other teams. I think all of us, at Panasonic Toyota team Racing aim to improve and I don't think we ever stop improving - this is a basic Toyota philosophy.”
The notion, coming from the team manager, that there is a tension between “the Formula 1 way” and the “Toyota way” is intriguing, if not a bit startling. “Balance” is what you achieve when you have two opposites and you try to insure that one does not overwhelm the other. “Balance” is not generally considered an attribute of great utility in racing, where an uncompromising insistence on what works, and only what works, is usually thought essential. Certainly, Toyota has not shown itself willing to do whatever it takes to win in Formula One. It has seemed quite willing to settle for mediocrity.
Formula One is a hideously expensive form of racing, and one which Toyota may be finding harder to conquer than it expected. As a manufacturer, Formula One seems the ideal vehicle for the company to advertise its technological expertise. Formula One is internationally regarded and commands a huge fan following throughout Europe and much of the rest of the world. Toyota is trying to increase European sales, as well as establishing itself in other international markets.
But, the team has become a negative. A team that cannot win may be worse for Toyota’s image than no team at all. Moreover, racing may not fit that confortably into the image of a company that seems increasingly to be betting its future on hybrids and other “green” cars.
And, of course, there’s the money.
No team is certainly less expensive.