Toyota withdraws from Formula One

[gcdugas]

How many out there will now criticize Max Mosley and his attempt to force through cost cuts?
Who can now support the hypocrisy of Fota, an organization set up solely to destabilize F1 in the interests of the big car manufacturers. Those companies that have been leaching off tax payer bail outs now for years.
Rats leaving a sinking ship? Where are they now?
F1 needs Jean Todt and the experience of Donnely, not some mealy mouthed sop to the fossil fuel industry.
Bring back Kers!

I criticize Max's nutty Marxist plans to have a cap. Such things are unenforceable. Max wanted kit car teams he could bully around. Outfits like Honda, Toyota and BMW added prestige to the series. Who really cares about Manor/Cosworth? Who cares about Campos/Cosworth? USF1 only has a very limited nationalistic appeal that will soon expire as the team necessarily internationalizes its drivers, engineers, vendors, and sponsors. They will then just be another kit car Cosworth team. Yawn!

Mosley waged war against the manufacturers. That says it all. Max's modud operundi has always been adversarial. Genuine cooperative efforts are alien to his N@z! autocratic megalomaniacal diseased psyche.

Yes to more KERS. Unlimited KERS... not just 6 sec./lap. Yes to more relevant innovations. Yes to CVTs, to various engine configs and valving schemes. Yes to a two stroke equivalency formula for DFI "Orbital type" schemes. Yes to AWD and other ideas. No minimum weight and " handling ballast" but yes to "driver ballast" placed on the driver's seat near the driver CG to make larger drivers have a chance against 55 Kg "jockey sized" pilots and put an end to all the unhealthy dieting. Yes to different wheel sizes, wheelbases and car widths.

Simply put... if the rules specify 99% on the car then gains can only be found but expensively working on the 1% remaining. If 1% is specified then the teams can seek gains in the 99% that is open. Which path seems more likely to interest manufacturers, engineers, fans and sponsors?

Max strangled the rules so tightly that all the cars look so much alike. Remember the days of six wheeled cars and twin chassis? Fan cars, turbos against non-turbos etc. We had variety, passing, real engineering, innovation and brand identities. Everything today is too vanilla. Look at the field... about the only thing different to the average fan is that some cars have shark fins and some do not. BFD.

LMP cars are where the manufacturers will flee too. They need to be seen as innovators and developing things that people can buy. Look at how much image PR Audi and now Peugeot have gotten from their diesels.

F1 risks losing all its prestige if it loses more big name outfits. Max's vision has led them to flee. It is not because "manufacturers come and go as they please". It is because there remains little reason for them to stay. F1 is sinking and we don't even see it. F1 needs to wake up. Don't buy into the delusion of "more teams on the grid means more interest".

F1 needs to look at how NASCAR treats the fans too. F1 is too snooty. BTW, everyone gets very sensitive about their "secrets" when you can only innovate in that 1% realm. If we had six wheeled cars, cars with two-stroke engines, V12s against V8s or flat sixes, turbos against non-turbos, wide cars against narrow cars, heavy powerful cars against light nimble cars etc. on the grid... then the teams wouldn't be so "secretive" and "fan unfriendly". Rather they would openly display the different approaches they took and why.

[andartop]

LMP cars are where the manufacturers will flee too. They need to be seen as innovators and developing things that people can buy. Look at how much image PR Audi and now Peugeot have gotten from their diesels.

+1
I think they should have developed the GT-One car, they got so close to a win at LeMans, and it looked absolutely stunning as well.

I also think they never should have left the WRC. Here's hoping for a return to the sport that really made TTE great..

[RacingManiac]

I'd imagine majority of the machines and tools and windtunnel can be used for other motorsports venue, if they are indeed still interested in them. It'll be interesting to see another Toyota run at Le Mans....

[autogyro]

An unworkable unregulated Utopian dream then, Is that it?
I prefer F1 to go Nationalistic like you accuse Max of being. Then we could forget the Yanks and most of the others they never win anyway. It would be Britain winning most of the time, racing Germany and Italy.
We could also get out of Europe at the same time, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and leave all of the criminals to sort out the world problems they have caused and continue with our! F1 series without them.
Much better idea than yours.

[Richard]

Sorry for being simple, but as I recall (and my slashed salary is evidence) there is a rather significant money supply problem out there. The manufacturers are fleeing F1 because their balance sheets can't afford any glamour. The politics didn't worry BMW/Toyota/Honda in recent years as they rushed to join in. They would have left if their F1 teams 'only' cost £50m a year.

So please leave the FIA/FOTA/Max/Bernie fanboy ying yang out of this. In the words of Bill Clinton - "Its the economy stupid".

Back to topic....

Shame Toyota couldn't make it work on their huge budget. I think the theory of their lean methods work with continuous improvement well in small creative teams with tight deadlines because it engenders a culture of sticking together and finding the problem, not busting egos. It is about each member of the team being empowered to make change. The Gasgoyne story seems to show that Toyota management didn't practice what they preached.

Of course one can get anally retentive about management method whereas it should be a tool to be used, not a slave to be obeyed.

[RacingManiac]

An unworkable unregulated Utopian dream then, Is that it?
I prefer F1 to go Nationalistic like you accuse Max of being. Then we could forget the Yanks and most of the others they never win anyway. It would be Britain winning most of the time, racing Germany and Italy.
We could also get out of Europe at the same time, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and leave all of the criminals to sort out the world problems they have caused and continue with our! F1 series without them.
Much better idea than yours.

Wha?

[axle]

Le Mans is unfinished business for Toyota, I hope to see them go there...

The GT-One. Possibly one of the best cars ever...beaten by the rule book.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... -06-02.JPG

[johnny99]

It would be cool to see a racer taking over the team and useing the immense resources in a correct manner, and showing Toyota how it should be done

John

[Giblet]

+1 to the Wha?

[BreezyRacer]

It would be cool to see a racer taking over the team and useing the immense resources in a correct manner, and showing Toyota how it should be done

John

Oh yeah, like that would be easy. It takes much more than a few grease monkeys and a welder to do F1. Those days are gone. F1 is competition at it's hardest, where every nook and cranny of your organization makes or breaks you. Good intent doesn't get it .. buying the good stuff doesn't get it .. catching up doesn't get it .. cheer leading doesn't get it .. only getting ahead of curve that gets it, and then only when it's executed to a tee.

Calibrate your wind tunnel wrong .. you're history. Pick the wrong engine supplier .. you're history. Pick the wrong car designer .. you're history. Rely on the wrong sponsor .. you're history. This ain't no foolin' around, this F1 thing.

[flynfrog]

An unworkable unregulated Utopian dream then, Is that it?
I prefer F1 to go Nationalistic like you accuse Max of being. Then we could forget the Yanks and most of the others they never win anyway. It would be Britain winning most of the time, racing Germany and Italy.
We could also get out of Europe at the same time, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and leave all of the criminals to sort out the world problems they have caused and continue with our! F1 series without them.
Much better idea than yours.

?

[WhiteBlue]

So please leave the FIA/FOTA/Max/Bernie fanboy ying yang out of this. In the words of Bill Clinton - "Its the economy stupid".

Well there is an important connection between the manufacturer pull out and the FIA plan to restrict F1 teams basically to the resources that can be paid out of the FOM money.

Teams with decades at the top and pretty much unlimited funds had no intention to compete with other teams on ingenuity and innovation. They have now done some politicking which helped them fudge up the issue and keep some advantages. But the FIA succeeded in getting more teams on the grid. It came just in time to avoid an empty grid with dumb emergency measures like third cars by the fat cats. It will help to break up the old structures and bring some fresh wind into the old boys club. To bad we had to loose a team like Super Aguri in the process. They would have been more worthy than Toyota with all their money. Their legacy to F1 was the duble deck diffusor that turned the 2009 season upside down. It shows what a long way a small team could have gone with wits instead of brute cash.

It is just a pitty that Ferrari and FOTA managed to kill the hybrid plans in F1. The manufacturers could have stayed for longer if the plans for a more sustainable way of racing had succeeded. It is not for the good of F1 that KERS is now totally killed instead of expanding on the castrated spec that we saw this year. One has to wonder what had been possible and how many manufacturers would still be in F1 if F1 had started with unrestricted KERS in 2008. We will never know that.

So good bye BMW, Honda, Toyota and possibly Renault.

[Confused_Andy]

An unworkable unregulated Utopian dream then, Is that it?
I prefer F1 to go Nationalistic like you accuse Max of being. Then we could forget the Yanks and most of the others they never win anyway. It would be Britain winning most of the time, racing Germany and Italy.
We could also get out of Europe at the same time, get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and leave all of the criminals to sort out the world problems they have caused and continue with our! F1 series without them.
Much better idea than yours.

?

lmao.

[nipo]

Simply put... if the rules specify 99% on the car then gains can only be found but expensively working on the 1% remaining. If 1% is specified then the teams can seek gains in the 99% that is open. Which path seems more likely to interest manufacturers, engineers, fans and sponsors?

On and off I have seen this idea appearing on some of these boards - an almost unregulated series featuring unimaginable vehicles. One of the most popular questions around is "How quickly can an F1 car go on a circuit if designers were allowed EVERYTHING?" Yeah, baby, bring back ground effects, turbo, beryllium, flexible aero, active suspension, or even the big fat fan someone stuck to the back of the car to suck air from underneath... That plus the two decades of advancement in science and technology and we might see cars go 10 seconds quicker around Suzuka!!!

So much for fantasy.

The real question is - under what circumstances were the restrictions put in place? Let's say, what caused the above list of goodies (and others) to be banned from F1?

Some in the name of safety
Some in the name of cost effectiveness
Some just because a small group of people decided "let's not let that team become too successful"?

(On the last note I am glad they allowed DDDs)

Safety concerns is a real issue. After Senna it seems like F1 can't go after pure speed anymore and that has meant a steady reduction in engine power over the years. Ground effects and the like were removed in the same sense. What I am trying to say is you now have a large undebatable objective of limiting top speed and cornering speed in the name of safety (2nd thought: is that really so?). With that, you must have restrictions one way or another. Then other problems will appear in terms of fairness and we'll see another set of regulations spawned for that, and so on, and so forth.

I am not sure if what gcdugas suggested is a workable solution (he's quite specific). It certainly sounds interesting and worth discussing on. Maybe a thread for "My Dream F1 Regs", or "Regs to Save F1"?

[flynfrog]

on the subject of safety off-topic but they can move it later.

reducing speed does not mean safer cars people die from tripping at walking speed. High cornering speed can cause blackouts. Red bull air race pilots are pulling fighter jet Gs without passing out. Its about the duration not the number.

I have posted a few times on here. that make the track the rule book not the cars. a bumpy track is not good for ground effect. You could take it to the level of grates in the corners to eliminate ground effect. You could make very long straits to force teams into a reduced down force position. the race length determines power output at a certain point refueling will cost more time than the added hp, you start to reach the rocket problem of more fuel is more weight and the requires more fuel to push the extra weight.