TOYOTA WANTS BOOSTED F1 PIPELINE FOR JAPANESE DRIVERS WITH HAAS TIE-UP

Toyota Gazoo Racing 

Toyota Gazoo Racing chairman Akio Toyoda has expressed his desire for there to be an improved pipeline to Formula 1 for Japanese drivers.

He made the comments as TGR announced a technical partnership with F1 team Haas that will revolve around Toyota supplying design and manufacturing services to Haas while the American-owned but British-based outfit will offer technical services – but mostly market expertise and its commercial nouse – in return.

The agreement also includes a new driver development programme that will include Toyota-supported drivers – as well as engineers and mechanics – taking part in Haas F1 tests.

Toyota’s international racing presence has revolved primarily around sportscars since 2012, but this year it decided to send reigning Super Formula champion Ritomo Miyata to Formula 2 and it will join Australia’s Supercars series in 2026.

Its venture into new racing domains comes despite macroeconomic pressures stifling Japanese investment in international sport, and in Japan’s single-seater scene it supplies engines to teams at the top level in Super Formula and is now the exclusive supplier of power units (via TOM’S) to the third-tier Super Formula Lights series and Japanese Formula 4.

There are drivers at every level of the ladder in Japan with Toyota’s backing, and a double programme in SF and the Super GT sportscar series is usually the end destination for those Toyota take to the top. Others have impressed enough to earn berths in its World Endurance Championship line-up, and Miyata is the first recent single-seater export.

There has been a history of Honda-powered F1 teams sending their proteges to SF as a warm-up for an F1 seat, with Liam Lawson the latest example. He follows the path of Pierre Gasly and Stoffel Vandoorne, and Lawson’s fellow Red Bull junior and F2 race-winner Ayumu Iwasa replaced him in Team Mugen’s SF line-up this year.

Previously Iwasa, like Yuki Tsunoda before him, was one of several Honda-backed Japanese drivers given the opportunity to climb the European single-seater ladder.

It has been harder for Toyota’s talents, particularly the home-grown ones, to break out of the domestic scene and into F1, although it has arranged for Ryo Hirakawa to test with McLaren after he moved from SF into its WEC roster.

“There’s something I sense when talking to professional racing drivers. It’s that everyone wants to drive the world’s fastest cars,” said Toyoda.

“That said, I’m the person who quit F1 [with Toyota’s 2009 withdrawal]. So I think that drivers were never able to frankly talk about it in front of me. It was like there was always this inhibiting atmosphere in our pit.

“In January this year, I said in front of everyone that I had finally gotten back to being an ordinary older guy who loves cars. I think that, somewhere deep in his heart, that ordinary older car-loving guy Akio Toyoda had always regretted having blocked – by pulling out of F1 – Japanese youths’ path toward driving the world’s fastest cars.”

He added: “The SF drivers over there now, both the Toyota and the Honda drivers, all grew up as kids driving karts. I believe there are many children all over the country who, admiring them, also drive karts. I think that, together with [Haas team principal Ayao] Komatsu and his team, we need to increase the number of such children.

“But before that, I would like to see the day when a SF driver grips the steering wheels of the world’s fastest cars.”

- Ida Wood