Toyota is the best example of a major automaker wasting its time, money and human resource in pursuit of elusive F1 glory. The grand exercise being pointless is one thing, making it even worse is that it was ultimately fruitless in terms of silverware.
In seven years and eight seasons of competition (2002-2009), during which some US$2 billion was spent in total, the Toyota F1 team only achieved 13 podium finishes and three pole positions.
Nobody knows how many more cars and trucks Toyota sold because of its big-budget involvement in F1, although it must have at least raised the Japanese company’s profile in motorsports-mad Europe. Everywhere else in the world, the team’s dismal race results did more harm than good to Toyota’s hard-earned reputation as Japan’s top automaker.
Toyota’s whopping outlay and millions of man-hours blown on Formula One were enough to launch Lexus all over again, twice. The money and manpower would have been better spent developing a cleverer Corolla, putting more luxury into the Camry, expanding the MPV range (with more Alphard variants), and convincing more young drivers to say “yes” to Yaris. Best of all, there should still be more than enough dough left over to create and market the Lexus LFA V10 supercar (or push a hydrogen fuel-cell car like the Mirai).
In other words, it would have been a win-win-win situation for Toyota if it didn’t fritter away a fortune on Formula One.
