So Can You Remind Me Why Toyota Is In Formula One?

Why do automotive manufactures race?

The desire to compete, improve and obtain the ultimate victory may motivate many.

Others may take a more altruistic view, and take the technology learned on the track to improve their vehicles to the public.

And of course a few view the sport as the ultimate form of advertising. However you may look at Formula One though, poor performance is generally not the best way to achieve any goal.

Unfortunately for Toyota when push comes to shove in ultra competitive Formula 1 scene, their efforts seem to consistently fall short.

Toyota entered the series in 2002 and has substantial backing and engineering ability, so it seems they should place far higher than they actually do. The results this season are further exasperated by the Williams’ team that in their first year of using the same Toyota engine, is fairing better than the factory effort despite a half of the budget. Why?

In March 2007 F1 Racing published its annual estimates of spending by Formula One teams. The total spending of all 11 teams in 2006 was estimated at $2,986 million. This conveniently had been broken down as follows;

Taking the initial investment of $250 million for Toyota to enter the Formula One circuit in 2002 and assuming equal annual increases until we reach the 2006 budget of almost $419 million we can see their progress through the years in relation to expenditure..

Toyota historical placement

Believe it or not, Toyota has made a very impressive expenditure of over $1.67 BILLION coming into the 2007 season in the pursuit of the Formula One crown! Truly an incredible accomplishment.

So what is the ultimate point of Formula One for Toyota and what did they gain?

Obviously, as we can tell from the results, winning through competition was not a not a factor so we can rule that out.

How about bringing technology to the masses? As much as I rack my brain, I can’t think of a single Formula One advance brought to the street by Toyota. (I hope you can enlighten me on this though) However to give credit, where credit is due, they do claim the new V10 in the Lexus LF-A was inspired by their Formula One efforts. Hopefully the inspiration of this new power plant isn’t simply limited to the number of cylinders it has.

Advertising? No doubt this has been a boon for them but to spend over $2.1 billion dollars at the close of this season advertising to the limited Formula One market is questionable at best.

While ee can all speculate the true motives of Tyota, but I think many of us can agree, to the average buyer, the location of the cup holders in their Camry may be more important to them than Formula One.

So can you remind again me why Toyota is in Formula One?