Toyota in F1 2001-2009 in pictures

Posted on

| Written by

Mika Salo tests Toyota's first F1 car at Paul Ricard in 2001

Toyota: they arrived, they spent staggering amounts of money without winning anything, and then they gave up.

It’s not the kind of inspiring story that’s likely to get made into a film any time soon. But it wasn’t without its high points and interesting moments. Have a look at some of Toyota’s better memories in this 90-picture gallery.

More F1 pictures

Images © Toyota F1 World

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

18 comments on “Toyota in F1 2001-2009 in pictures”

  1. “Toyota: they arrived, they spent staggering amounts of money without winning anything, and then they gave up.”

    That is the best summary of Toyota’s efforts in Formula 1 I’ve ever heard!

  2. Never in the annals of motorsport history has so much effort been devoted to accomplishing so little…

    So much for “Practice Makes Perfect”…

  3. Probably the least important part of it all, but they never got around to having a proper livery did they? I mean talk about uninspired and uninspiring.

  4. That’s a great front angle photo on McNish there, too bad we don’t get those in the races these days.

  5. For years Toyota drivers complained about the car not being good enough. Toyota should have considered with whether their drivers were good enough. If rumours are to be believed, the team spent as much as $600 million in a single season. They should have dedicated $75 million of that to first rate drivers.

    1. Totally agree.

      Although they did spend quite a bit on Ralf Schumacher….. I think that about sums it up!

      1. Toyota made bad choices when it came to drivers. Ralf Shoe was a bad option in my opinion. He was just a solid dependable, driver who won the odd race. Trulli is just a solid, dependable driver who qualifies well. Even though they all did well in other formulae McNish, Da Matta and Zonta are all average by F1 standards.

        If all Toyota wanted was a race win, they should have employed a driver who was a “race winner” with raw pace. Some one like JPM wouldn’t have been a bad bet. Not my favourite driver by any stretch of the imagination, but he was streaky, fast and on his day he could really get the best out of a car.

  6. I for one will miss Toyota’s Presence in F1. People that bash Toyota are idiots. And majority are fans of other F1 teams. So what if they didn’t win a race? Does that affect you in any way? F1 will be hell of a lot boring next year without Toyota, BMW and Honda. Good luck with that. I am sure I won’t be watching the pinnacle of motorsports which is competed by the likes of teams named Campos, manor, force India and Redbull that have no direct input towards the automotive industry. If Toyota does return to F1 in the future I hope they do the sensible thing and supply engines to a team and possibly use cologne as their base for engine operations. Or even supply McLaren when they run out of their Mercedes contract in 2015.

    1. Toyota may be a large auto manufacturer, but a can of Red Bull sets my pulse racing a lot more than cars like the Prius, Yaris and Land Cruiser do! ;-)

    2. Why are people who bash Toyota idiots? They were in F1 for almost a decade with probably the biggest budget in every season and they didn’t manage one win. I am not glad that they are leaving but you can’t say their time in F1 was a success.

  7. Why would someone place Heidfeld in the vicinity of Sutil, Kubika and Wurz. and Wurz is even on some sort of platform.

    Poor Heidfeld looks like a dwarf.

  8. Yeah…couldn’t agree more with The Sri Lankan…

    Toyota was a solid ($$$$$$) team, with real aspirations…unfortunately they finally ran out of ventilations.

    We were lucky to have Toyota. I remember years when there were really only a few teams with the resources to compete in a serious way….it didn’t make for very interesting racing. To knock the guys from Cologne has always been too easy and too “smart”.

    If we go through a few years with one or two teams dominating to the point that races become forgone conclusions then we may look back at the years with grids full of “serious” teams as very good times.

    (Who is that very large, and very silver, giganticus standing in the shadows?)

  9. my comments is only partly related to Toyota.

    as you know tomorrow and the day after tomorrow will take place Trulli’s and Salo’s nascar test with the Michael Waltrip Racing, which is also related to Toyota.

    These 2 guys are like the frames, but not for only Toyota, maybe Lotus as well.

    Salo was the last signed driver of the classic Lotus team in 1994, for the last few races, before they wnet bankrupt. Trulli could be the first signing of the new Lotus.

    Salo was the first signed driver of Toyota, Trulli, well, he is not their last sigining, but he was there on the last race of the Japanese team.

    and now they are testing together in North America. interesting at least :)

    1. Quite interesting facts. Based on this Lotus simply have to sign Trulli ;)

  10. I have always asked myself what companies like Toyota get out of being in F1. I can understand that for car makers whose image is primarily linked to performance (Ferrari, Mclaren, Porsche, Lamborghini, Aston Martin etc) being in F1 can be a good marketing move – and winning is important. But, for companies whose cars are bought for their confort, reliability, safety, low fuel consumption, price or other day-to-day criteria like these – what is the attraction of being in F1? Even if you become a regular winner, I have doubts you’d sell a single extra car for your troubles.

  11. The Sri Lankan
    18th November 2009, 0:00

    what i have been saying all this time is well explained by none other than mr Mika Salo here:

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80183

  12. Nice job Keith,I still feel bad for Kobayashi,as he and Toyota both looked good for pairing up in 2010.Hope he gets a seat somewhere.

  13. I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.

Comments are closed.