Toyota Returns To F1 - Sort Of: Technical Partnership With Haas

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Image: Haas F1 on Twitter
One of the biggest car manufacturers in the world is back on the Formula One stage - sort of: Toyota Gazoo Racing has allied with Haas F1 for a technical partnership.

With the 2024 Formula One World Championship currently in the middle of its second four-week break of the year, fans are looking forward to the final six Grands Prix of the year once the United States GP at COTA kicks off on October 20. Ahead of this, F1's only American entrant Haas F1 has announced a new technical partnership - with none other than Toyota Gazoo Racing.

Having entered Formula One in 2016, Haas F1 recorded its best season to date in 2018, finishing fifth in the constructor's standings. Since then, the squad originally out of North Carolina but based in Banbury in England struggled to break away from the tail end of the field. Currently, Haas is sitting in seventh in the standings.


Toyota, meanwhile, are of course one of the most successful World Endurance Championship efforts , having taken the Manufacturers Championship every year since 2018 and scored six drivers titles between 2014 and 2023.

The new technical alliance sees Toyota providing Haas with design, technical and manufacturing services, while tech expertise and commercial benefits go the opposite direction. Could it mean a full Toyota return to F1 eventually? The Japanese manufacturer does have unfinished business there, after all. The official FIA Twitter account did welcome back Toyota already, too, although it is probably best not to read too much into this.


Toyota's First F1 Foray​

Back to Toyota's unfinished F1 business, though. The manufacturer first entered Formula One in 2002 after years of competing in endurance racing and WRC, which spawned iconic cars such as the Toyota GT-One and the Celica GT-Four WRC. After 1999, however, Toyota cast aside its Le Mans project, and a year later, it pulled the plug on its WRC program, too.

The mission was clear: enter Formula One as an all-new team, initially even with a V12 engine until V10s wwre mandated from 2001 onwards. One of the most ambitious projects in modern F1, Toyota spent the entire 2001 season preparing and testing its TF101 prototype car to be fully ready for the 2002 campaign.

Having brought in well-known designer Gustav Brunner, who had worked for multiple F1 teams since the early 1980s, designing cars for Ferrari, Arrows, Leyton House, and others. The program was headed by Ove Andersson, a former rally driver and founder of Toyota Team Europe, which would later morph into Toyota Motorsport and eventually Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe.

As the 2002 season opener at Melbourne approached, the anticipation was high - and the red-and-white Toyota TF102s piloted by Mika Salo and Allan McNish were certainly striking, but not due to their pace. The Cologne-built vehicles were 14th (Salo) and 16th (McNish) on the grid, but Salo at least managed to score a point in the team's debut that saw eight cars wiped out in a chaotic crash at the start, including McNish's.

Chasing Expectations​

Salo kept his car going and looked like could finish fifth when chasing Mark Webber's Minardi towards the end of the race. The Australian making his F1 debut at his home race was determined to hang onto the position, though, and Salo eventually spun off, but kept going to finish sixth. Webber, meanwhile, was celebrated like a Grand Prix winner for scoring points in his debut for the perennial backmarker.


In a way, the debut race was a symbol for Toyota's time in F1 already: The team always fell short of its own lofty expectations, although its form did increase over time. Toyota's best season came in 2005, when Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher combined for five podium finishes to see the team finish fourth in the constructors standings.

Ironically, the team's final season in 2009 could have been the one where it finally turned the page, having developed a car that was at times the only one to keep the pace of the all-conquering - at least in the first half or so of the season - Brawn F1 outfit. A wrong strategy call at Bahrain cost the team its first win - had it achieved this, things might have looked much different in the following years.

Instead, Toyota decided to pull the plug at the end of the year in the face of the global economic crisis. One of the biggest budgets in F1, several race -winning drivers (Trulli, Schumacher, Olivier Panis) behind the wheel, certain decisions influenced by the corporate side of the manufacturer - all of this resulted in no victories, 17 podiums and three pole positions over eight seasons.

So, could the new tech partnership with Haas F1 - that does not include engines, by the way - mean that we will see an actual Toyota F1 team again sometime soon? Maybe - but it is also hard to imagine Toyota running both a WEC and F1 program, or them pulling out of WEC to tackle F1. Then again, unexpected things happen all the time in racing.

If you want to get a head start on a hypothetical Toyota return to Formula One, look no further than our F1 24 download section: @Santi007 has created a MyTeam package for Toyota Gazoo Racing in August already, including team logos, car livery, driver suits and helmets.

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Image: @Santi007

What do you make of the technical partnership between Haas F1 and Toyota Gazoo Racing? Let us know in the comments below and join the discussion in our F1 forum!
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About author
Yannik Haustein
Lifelong motorsport enthusiast and sim racing aficionado, walking racing history encyclopedia.

Sim racing editor, streamer and one half of the SimRacing Buddies podcast (warning, German!).

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Comments

I think the expectations will be just as (too) high, as the joy of the expectations for the reunion of McLaren and Honda was at the beginning, when they had made the bill without the host, so to speak....
 
I don't expect anything more than Toyota key rings and caps given out to/by the the HAAS staff, there will probably be Gazoo Racing T-shirts (that would cover the manufacturing bit) available for purchase at races from the HAAS motor home, and Toyota might gain technical info on how Ferrari integrate their V6 engine into the F1 car Chassis.

I can see it working quite well as both team are used to being at the back of the grid, and both teams use White and Red colour schemes, albeit HAAS have a lot of Black carbon too. :thumbsup:
 
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Hmmmm.... wonder if this means GM/Chevy will have to try to dip their feet into F1 at some point as well since the other two NASCAR competitors in Ford & Toyota now both have some form of F1 partnership & with 3 races in the US?
 
We Got toyota back to F1 (kinda) before GTA VI so welcome again toyota time to see the biggest company in the world win a race in f1 cause in other series like WEC , Rally etc dominating like max verstappen did in 2023 with redbull
 
Hmmmm.... wonder if this means GM/Chevy will have to try to dip their feet into F1 at some point as well since the other two NASCAR competitors in Ford & Toyota now both have some form of F1 partnership & with 3 races in the US?
Well, they could go under the banner of Holden.. or Vauxhall, yeah, then we might get a Vauxhall 'Victor'
I'll get my coat🧥
 
Toyota are just wasting time with this.. they have to develop the poorest team in Formula 1.. And we've seen what rubbish they've achieved before...
 
Toyota are just wasting time with this.. they have to develop the poorest team in Formula 1.. And we've seen what rubbish they've achieved before...
That was 15 years ago. Since then, they have put together an excellent WEC program. And this is not a takeover by Toyota, simply a technical partnership.
 
Yeah that's gonna happen as well...

And of course there's Red Bull rebadging their Honda's as Fords...
Yeah, perhaps but that one's a bit different in that Ford are firing their Ford 'blue oval' badge onto an engine initially designed by Honda but now Built and fettled by Red Bull...
Unless, Ford are gonna' provide the Electrical lump and stuff and integrate it into the Red Bull Powertrain.

It's all crazy now, Aston Martin Road cars are Mercedes chassis and engines, yet Aston Martin don't feel they're good enough for their F1 car and opt for Honda engines, at least Ferrari* are still true to the soul of F1

*However, I'm not a Ferrari fan
 
A friend of mine visited the Haas factory and was stunned how small their factory was.Just a race shop and they dont make any parts on site.Now that the rest of F1 is a bit more corporate I think Toyota see it as an opportunity to get into F1 through the side door without to much fanfair.
 
Yeah, perhaps but that one's a bit different in that Ford are firing their Ford 'blue oval' badge onto an engine initially designed by Honda but now Built and fettled by Red Bull...
Unless, Ford are gonna' provide the Electrical lump and stuff and integrate it into the Red Bull Powertrain.

It's all crazy now, Aston Martin Road cars are Mercedes chassis and engines, yet Aston Martin don't feel they're good enough for their F1 car and opt for Honda engines, at least Ferrari* are still true to the soul of F1

*However, I'm not a Ferrari fan

Ferrari are just an earlier version of Red Bull after all... Back when you didn't need a sugar water boom market to get into the sport...

They started with Alfa Romeo... Like Red Bull did with Renault...

They really need to make a regulation that stops manufacturers from simply sponsoring a team... They need to actively get involved and do more than just put a logo on the car...
 
Enzo drove for Alfa Romeo in the days before Formula One, when it was simply known as Grand Prix, when the rules were affixed and Formula One came into being, Ferrari were there with their own car it wasn't a converted Alfa Romeo, and for the D50/801, OK, I stand down a bit as that was simply a Lancia because the Ferrari was crap and Lancia was better at the time (though not as good as the Maserati 250F)
The Minardi was rebadged a few times on it's way to becoming RB visa cash app, and the Stewart GP to Red Bull journey was flighty too, but credit to Red Bull they have sunk a pile of money into the team and heve a realistic engineering business for F1, without them the grid would be a bit empty (to be honest I feel even with Red Bull's 4 cars the grid's are sparse) though I was also one that cried out "a F****** drinks company?"

As for badge engineering... I dislike it, really, I do, I hate that a company can slap an Alfa Romeo badge on a car and pretend it's theirs*, and try to make the world believe it too, even in the road car business... came thingsome south eastern manufacturing company enters a 'pertnership' with Chavrolet or Ford or whoever and bang there's a cheap as chipe Chevy for the masses.
But however, I'm not the one running the company being coersed by whatever political arm to make changes to how things are done... above my mind grade I'm afraid.

British Leyland did it as did the chrysler family on the 60/70's with Austin, Morris, MG, and Wolsley, Riley and all the rest, I know, even Rolls Royce and Bentley, Jaguar and Daimler, but it felt different then,
 
That was 15 years ago. Since then, they have put together an excellent WEC program. And this is not a takeover by Toyota, simply a technical partnership.
I suppose so.. But that's WRC, they have no knowledge about F1, and they've bin hit with the task of being a big part of the sport's poorest team.. doesn't sound good to me
 

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