Toyota cuts F1 budget ... again
As Toyota is one of the many car manufacturers suffering under the global crisis, the company decided to cut the F1 team's budget. Team Principal Tadashi Yamashina declared to news agency 'Reuters' that he has never seen such sizeable costs cuts since he has been at the company.
Yamashina said: "Our Formula 1 budget was cut again and again from its original figure. It was cut again after Honda's announcement they were leaving F1 and within a month the figure was reduced again after Toyota's end of yearly earnings target was revised.
"I'm not able to put a figure on how much the Formula 1 budget was slashed by, but in all my time at Toyota I have never seen cuts like it."
Yamashina confirmed that good performances on the race track are vital for the team to please the bosses in Japan. "Winning and results are important," he said. "There are other factors too. It's a business and unless we make the team viable, next year we may have to cut costs further."
