Toyota discloses unprecedented details of F1 development

Last year, the team finished fourth in the championship, so the third car option has gone. That puts the onus fully on the two race drivers to do all the set-up and tyre work on Friday and of course any running involves using up precious engine miles.

“Losing the Friday third driver means the race drivers will inevitably do more laps,” says Mike Gascoyne, “which has an effect on engine mileage over the weekend. And we will end up doing more laps anyway, because in qualifying instead of doing one timed lap, we will have to go out and do a lot of running.”

Dieter Gass remains optimistic: “It was nice to have an additional car running on race weekends, which was able to go through useful programmes like tyre testing. Now we will rely more on the experience of the race drivers, so it will be more work for them and a lot more demanding on the cars. But on our side we did not suffer from mileage limitations last year, so we had almost three complete programmes with the three drivers.”

John Howett concludes: “None of the top teams can run a third car, so as we mature and improve as a team, we have to up our game and race against top teams in the same circumstances. Without the third car, there will be new challenges and I am confident we will tackle them head-on and overcome them.”

THE TOYOTA WAY

The Toyota Way is the name given to the set of managerial values and business methods under which the company operates. While much of what it encompasses has been at the heart of the company’s operations for many years, the actual phrase was coined as recently as 2001, in the light of Toyota’s continued expansion outside Japan.

The Toyota Way was compiled to summarise the company’s ‘DNA’ in a single document that can be read and understood by employees or team members around the globe, including those within the Panasonic Toyota Racing operation in Cologne. The key concepts include challenge, respect for people, team work and kaizen – essentially the elimination of muda, or waste, through continuous improvement.

Employees are encouraged to understand that the Toyota Way is not just a collection of empty slogans, but also includes analytical and communication tools and systems that have a practical use.

...continued