Kobayashi made big enough impression to at least land full time seat in GP2. If he doesn't end up with seat in F1.

Honda paid out their withdrawal over 1 yr by funding that team. Did Toyota do some homework in preparing for a staged pull out rather than a cold turkey one ?

Again, the profit numbers came in for this quarter and the board must have seen them over the weekend from their accountants already.

TF109B - 04 November 2009 12:11 AM

it could be a board meeting for a big cut in the budget and not pulling out. Even if, I won't mind too much as long as they go racing somewhere besides Japan and Nascar. Rolex is ok but they lost the championship this year. I want them to get into FIA GT racing with the LFA, and they just might. Who knows if some super rich guy wants to buy a couple LFA's to race with. Toyota is afterall choosing who they want to own the car. Having said that they also said that if the owner wanted to he could have the car stripped out and race prepped if they desired. Who knows! I love toyota for more than just F1. I loved the Toyota GT-ONE LeMans car, loved the supra. Loved the MR2 and Celica. Continue to support them in whatever it is they do.

And I still got Hamilton to root for.

If they did only cut their budget, say in half, they could still have a chance at success. Half their budget puts them on par with Williams and Red Bull, plus they would have all that development they have already done. Of course when they unfreeze the engines, they will have to dole out some more cash. It is a shame, it seemed like every year they had big expectations that didn't come to realization.

Brawnista - 04 November 2009 12:14 AM

Honda paid out their withdrawal over 1 yr by funding that team. Did Toyota do some homework in preparing for a staged pull out rather than a cold turkey one ?

Again, the profit numbers came in for this quarter and the board must have seen them over the weekend from their accountants already.

You're amazing.

A few months ago I couldn't convince you that BMW pulled out because of economics. You kept rehashing the Board line about technology alignment.

And yet, Toyota hasn't even officially withdrawn yet, much less issued a statement, and you are already attributing it to economics in your posts.

How do you do it?

Believe it or not, ESPN is reporting that Toyota is withdrawing from F1. Must have been the first time since Schumie retired that ESPN even had anything about F1!

Its official. I guess you can leave the question mark out of it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8341602.stm
http://www.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idUSTRE5A310C20091104

http://www.planetf1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5673100,00.html

another one bites the dust.

Its up on the F1.com official F1 site. Doesn't get more official than that. It would be hard to sell the team at the last minute like Honda did if there are no slots open.

A real shame. You have to really wonder about the Japanese Grand Prix now. They were having problems before this. My guess is no race in Japan in 2010.

Personally, I've lost a lot of respect for Toyota ever since the Prius... so I'm not big on the company; however, the F1 team did seem to be making progress toward eventual success. It seems that whenever a F1 team gets close, the rug gets pulled out from under them.

Now if we can only get Toyota to can the lame Prius commercials.