TRDFantasy

Yup. They get my respect because they started everything from scratch, and even now they don't want to rely on big name industry "experts" or using loads of money to hire away people from other teams. They want to learn everything and gain experience themselves. Such knowledge can be put to use in other motorsports, and can applied to production cars.

Mr Johnson

They didn't start from scratch. They spent $$$ hiring Gascoyne specifically because they didn't want to start from scratch. It just turned out to be a bad decision. He focused on aero above all else. I'll explain why mechanical improved in 2005 below. As for giving them respect, I respect them for spending as much as they do without results and sticking with F1. I don't respect them for not shaking things up more dramatically as a result of the lack of form.

They did. And that was when the Michelins were the inferior tire. They improved in 2005 which is why Toyota improved. The tire was providing for the mechanical grip the team couldn't build into the chassis. Do you remember what Toyota did at Indy that year? Then in 2006 they moved to Bridgestone and most would agree that Michelin was again the superior tire last year. Stinks for Toyota but they have, for the most part, been on inferior rubber most of their tenure in F1.

This is a Toyota biased forum so you are going to see more comments about Toyota. Honda is a laughing stock right now and I don't think you'll see anyone defending them. McLaren didn't get a single win but that goes with the ups and downs of F1. McLaren has had the ups so one year of downs is not immediate cause for panic and they have bounced back dramatically. Toyota has yet to have a great year.

Don't get me wrong I still root for Toyota and Jarno. But it amazes me how they seem stuck in making forward progress. Honda is just

As for drivers, let me just say that perhaps, just perhaps where Toyota is lacking is in drivers that can provide the feedback that the car is broken in such and such an area and then have the stature to back it up and have it fixed by the team (think Alonso at McLaren or Schumacher at Ferrari).

Mr Johnson

Sorry missed this in my response above. I do see the smiley but...

Yeah.... They designed it run poorly for a year because they knew the freeze was coming. I knew the freeze was coming too but that wouldn't have stopped me from building a beast to start with if I could.

Maybe I should lose at more things I do for a longer period of time so that when I finally win the victory will be so much sweeter. Someone should have told Schumacher that when he was winning the back to back titles.

MR_F1

1-Toyota started without Gascoyne
(though, they have made efforts to hire experienced ppl)
2-The engine didnt run poorly. It just was never run to 20k or 21k rpm like the other teams. where it failed was in reliability.

spwolf

you dont watch many F1 races, do you?
Engine freeze date was not known up until last minute.

spwolf

of course they hired a lot of experts, but most of the team was from their own ranks, since they had big WRC operation going on.

However at the same time, even if you hired main Ferrari designer, he wouldnt be able to get you to the same level - thats just impossible. You build on decades of experience.

Look at Renault - fastest last year, and 6th-7th fastest this year. This is sport where first 10 teams have over 150 million budgets and where top 6 teams have over 300 million budgets. And there is only one winner.

TRDFantasy

They *did* start from scratch. The Toyota team was first created in 2000, and their debut season was 2002. Gascoyne was not hired until 2004. He didn't just focus on aero. More broadly, he focused on performance, at the cost of reliabiltiy.

Toyota had a good year in 2005. It wasn't great, but they did finish 4th in constructor's points, right behind Ferrari.

MR_F1

Had the US Grand prix been run they would have been 3rd. Trulli was on pole. That race give ferrari 18 free points.
The ended up beating Toyota by 12

Mr Johnson

You are correct. They started completely from scratch. They decided to enter F1 in 1999, missed their target 2001 entry and instead entered in 2002. IMO what they had at that point was the equivalent of beta software. The car was horrible! The drivers were poor. I didn't even consider it much of a serious effort. The only team they beat was Arrows which ran out of cash. They were even beaten by the Minardi. IMO a pathetic first attempt. How many DNFs?! If you want to cheer them for that go ahead but I simply see it as waste of resources that could have been better applied.

In 2004 they hired Gascoyne as well as some Ferrari engineers who were then accused of stealing the F2003GA design to help build the 2004 Toyota challenger. Don't care whether they did or didn't the point was that Toyota was trying to buy talent and not build it internally as some of you seem so keen to protest.

As for your reluctance to think that Gascoyne was too aero centric let me point this out...

And I will say they did have a good year. They were on the dominant tires at the time which, IMO, provided the mechanical crutch that the Toyota was lacking. I think they only had 3 or 4 DNFs that year (not counting the USGP DNS).

Now the reliability may be referring to the 2006 challenger which was terrible but that year also saw the introduction of a new V8 engine formula. I don't think that new cooling/packaging requirements, new tires with a general lack of grip and the problems they had were a coincidence. Note how they did pick up the pace as the Bridgestones improved towards the end of the year.

Exactly right. But where I have my problem with Toyota is that they have not won or even been in the top 3 teams yet. Renault gets a pass for a bad year when they just finished winning back-to-back championships. Toyota doesn't.

I'm not a Toyota hater (Except for the fact that they have taken a great racetrack, Suzuka, away from us). I just can't believe how much money they have wasted for the results they have achieved.

I'll be curious to see how Gascoyne does at Spyker. I'm sure he will provide aero improvements for them but as they improve I'll be keen to see what sort of mechanical grip his cars exhibit.

Mr Johnson

I've been getting up to watch them live for a long, long time. F1 coverage dictated my cable or satellite provider choice. No, I don't watch many F1 races.

Going into the year they should have had a kick-butt motor. It was pretty clear that the motor they were going to submit would have to complete two full race weekends by the season ender in Brazil. That's one of the reasons why Renault left Alonso on the lower spec engine for Brazil. It was more 'known' and thus less likely to blow but they needed Fisi on the new motor to make the two race rule.

Now I don't know what went on the technical delegates meetings behind the scenes but they knew for plenty long enough when those engines would be frozen.

To claim that the Toyota motor didn't run poorly as MR_F1 did just because their motor didn't spin 20K, 21K or more seems silly. If they could have gotten their motor to rev that high they would have. More RPM is more HP and though engine mapping matters to provide TQ out of the corners, I can't imagine a single team purposely leaving 1K or 2K RPM on the development table. IMO compared to other motors of that time it did run poorly whether it was reliable or not (which it wasn't).

ff_

I would disagree with that. Yeah you need a good car that's set up right, you need reliability, and you need efficient pit crews. But the driver makes a big difference. A driver that gets on and off the gas properly, who can consistently take the correct path through the corners and at the maximum speed, and who can predict the actions of other drivers and use the results of every interaction to their best advantage... is going to be standing on the podium far more often than anyone else.

Mr Johnson

Ultimately you need a good driver to win it all. However to improve the car you do not need a great driver only someone that can provide good feedback and is respected by the team. I mentioned this in a later post above.

TRDFantasy

Waste of resources? It seems like this argument is going in circles. Toyota had zero F1 knowledge or experience when they entered the sport, so it would have been practically *impossible* for them to do well in their first two years. A lot of people who criticize Toyota's big budget fail to understand all that money was needed to attract some talent from other teams, and to set-up the team. Starting from scratch means Toyota built their own facilities, and in F1 starting from scratch requires a huge budget.

Toyota initially thought that getting talent from other teams was the way to go, but they quickly realized that was the wrong approach. Again, this all goes back to experience. Toyota is now taking a more focused approach, and trying to learn everything themselves. If you've noticed, Toyota is not hiring any other big names and is sticking with what they got, because they understand that all they lack is experience.


Renault has decades of F1 experience, and the team is a back-to-back world champion. There is simply NO excuse why Renault should be doing this bad. Toyota's situation is understandable because they lack a tremendous amount of experience compared to Renault. There should be more criticism at Renault then Toyota in this situation.

Again, you criticize Toyota for "wasting" money and resources, because you don't know the full story and don't realize where exactly all that money was spent. It was not "wasted" at all. Most of that money was used to initially set-up Toyota's F1 effort.