Toyota announces WRC plans

[Miika]

So what happened to the current Yaris WRC? Was it not good enough?

They will start with the Yaris still, "designing and building" referred more to the cars in the future (my bad).

[Rally Power]

Why cannot Tommi Makinen Racing become an outside partner to Toyota like MSport was to Ford or Prodrive to Subaru?

Wasn’t Malcolm Wilson Motorsport a modest tuner before become the rally official partner of Ford Motorsport?

Weren’t the Ford contracts that allow Wilson company to grow and build state of the art facilities?

And what have done Toyota Motorsport GmbH besides spending millions in F1 over the years without a single race victory and then become involved in another not very successful project: in 4 years they miss a Le Mans victory (their main objective) and just got one WEC title…

Maybe there’s a new vision from Toyota’s board about subcontracting outside companies in order to run their main motorsport activities (like they’ve done successfully from the beginning in Nascar), and that vision probably has come from the CEO himself.

Mr. Akio Toyoda (grandson of the Toyota founder) become Toyota CEO in 2009, and managed to turn the group first worlwide, supplanting GM leadership of decades. He’s a true motorsport fan and before becoming Toyota CEO he founded Gazoo Racing, a motorsport subsidiarie for domestic racing and a participation programme on the 24h of Nurburgring.

This year, a few months after the WRC announcement, Gazoo Racing become the head of all Toyota motorsport divisions, so Mr. Toyoda become himself the chief of the group motorsport activities. http://newsroom.toyota.co.jp/en/detail/7515501

Maybe Makinen becomes just TMG rally director, maybe TMR takes a contract to run the whole rally project; in any case Mr. Toyoda motorsport management decisions shouldn’t be so easily criticized.

PS: it can be a coincidence, but the Makinen involvement it’s announced a few weeks after another Le Mans 24h TMG failure!

[Lundefaret]

Tommi Mäkinen running the Toyota WRC effort is very good news!

I hope he is not directed to much when it comes to driver choice (regarding Japanese driver(s) it will be difficult). Tommi has a great understanding of what is needed to build and drive a fast rally car, and with a good budget and good drivers he will succeed.

So, how is this for a theory: Mäkinen and Petter Solberg have a strong link. Will Petter be one of the drivers, maybe a test driver? Will he end up in the WRC team, or will he do Toyotas official World Rallycross Team? Hmmmm...? Interesting

[rallyfiend]

The problem with running anything from Finland (if that is the intention) is the ability to attract talent (engineers, designers, mechanics etc) who want to / are willing to live in Finland - especially if it is somewhere remote like rural Finland.

VW started with a clear intention to buy the best talent they could get (FX and Sven Smeets from Citroen, Willy Rampf from Sauber, various engineers from Prodrive, M-Sport and others) and moving or commuting to Hannover is far more attractive concept than Finland. Cologne would offer a similar acceptable environment.

[giù tutto!]

Agree with rallyfiend, there are couple of interesting problems to solve:

VW, Hyundai ja TMG have got all the professional team players around the rallying world. French people will stay on French option. One of the main key will be the staff of the team. Who wants to move to Finland if the HQ will be there? Will there be some lack of team spirit with TMG?

Another main key is to get REALLY good people to lead the team everyday routine. With all my respect this four time world champion is not the best measured by leadership skills, social skills nor emotional intelligence which are all very important features for a successful leadership. I guess Tommi Makinen and the Japanese people can have good relationship, because they appreciate all of those masters very much in Japan. The principles of leadership based to old school authority and discipline. After the second world championship Makinen learned to shout if the things didn't worked as he wanted.

Thinking about the logistics I found it very odd to build up the workshop to Finland. Cannot say this circus is too expensive if you can afford that.

[vkangas]

Hi everyone! Long time no see . Here in Finland the news on this are all over the place and Tommi has given a lot of interviews. It seems that some people are rushing little bit too much ahead with their conclusions. I tried to put together a small collection what Tommi himself has said in reliable sources:

-They have started from scratch. Real kick-off was last september and after that quite a lot of things have happened.
-Today they are just reqruting, planning and building the team.
-At this early phase is operated from Tommi's current facilities in Puuppola, Finland as they wanted to get things going as fast as possible.
-After the initial planning phase they will evaluate the WRC HQ location. Decision should be after the summer and practically all options are open.
-According to Tommi TMG at Köln has so many projects going on that they want to build up a new organization just for rally. Cooperation with Köln will happen especially with aerodynamics and engines. They want this new rally team to be full of ambitious young people with high motivation and fresh ideas.
-Estimated team size is 100+ persons and target is to get atleast 10 cars ready for the 2017 start. R2 and R5 programs will follow
-There is only small team hired at the moment. Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen have been hired to work with the young drivers development program. Mikko is also likely to participate in testing the car
-Budget is "enough". The only goal is to win the championship.

[EightGear]

It's such a confusing situation though, something must have gone terribly wrong between Toyota and TMG.

Ironically enough TMG has been testing the Yaris in Finland this week.

[Rally Power]

Hi everyone! Long time no see . Here in Finland the news on this are all over the place and Tommi has given a lot of interviews. It seems that some people are rushing little bit too much ahead with their conclusions. I tried to put together a small collection what Tommi himself has said in reliable sources:

-They have started from scratch. Real kick-off was last september and after that quite a lot of things have happened.
-Today they are just reqruting, planning and building the team.
-At this early phase is operated from Tommi's current facilities in Puuppola, Finland as they wanted to get things going as fast as possible.
-After the initial planning phase they will evaluate the WRC HQ location. Decision should be after the summer and practically all options are open.
-According to Tommi TMG at Köln has so many projects going on that they want to build up a new organization just for rally. Cooperation with Köln will happen especially with aerodynamics and engines. They want this new rally team to be full of ambitious young people with high motivation and fresh ideas.
-Estimated team size is 100+ persons and target is to get atleast 10 cars ready for the 2017 start. R2 and R5 programs will follow
-There is only small team hired at the moment. Mikko Hirvonen and Jarmo Lehtinen have been hired to work with the young drivers development program. Mikko is also likely to participate in testing the car
-Budget is "enough". The only goal is to win the championship.

Great news!

Btw, Toyoda is a huge petrolhead: his racing alter ego is "Morizo"!

racing in Nurburgring: https://youtu.be/CXD5aLJa9ro
testing the Yaris: https://youtu.be/QY8A4m0g5aw
rallying with Makinen: https://youtu.be/_dgrC8pJw88

[N.O.T]

Great news!

Btw, Toyoda is a huge petrolhead: his racing alter ego is "Morizo"!

so was Tajima, and we saw how that effort ended...

so far the selection of people and drivers show that the focus is some people to get rich within a few years rather than achieving anything

[Tinke1979]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLr7tc-_Y94

And here is Camilli testing the Yaris in Finland