Officially Official: Toyota confirms departure from Formula One

Officially Official: Toyota confirms departure from Formula One

Filed under: Motorsports, Toyota



The buck's got to stop somewhere. Toyota has been pouring in hundreds of millions of dollars into its Formula One racing program for seven years now and has little to show for it. Now after both Honda and BMW have mothballed their F1 teams, Toyota has confirmed longstanding speculation by doing the same.

The announcement was not expected for another few days, but with rumors persisting, the Japanese automaker appears to have moved things forward with a press conference held by Akio Toyoda. The president of the Toyota Motor Corporation expressed his gratitude to the team and offered his apologies to those affected by the decision, but revealed that the company could no longer justify supporting the program.

Among the hundreds of personnel the move now leaves stranded, the three racing drivers which the team fielded this season - Timo Glock, Jarno Trulli and Kamui Kobayashi - will now be looking for new race seats with other teams, the latter facing the difficult prospect (despite his impressive performance) of finding a drive without the patronage of a Japanese company, of which exactly zero remain following the departure of Toyota, Honda and Bridgestone. Meanwhile, the team's withdrawal leaves an open slot on the grid next season, potentially to be filled by a BMW-less Sauber team. And with all the resources Toyota has poured into the team, it would not be unrealistic to expect another outfit to step in and acquire its extensive racing operations based in Cologne, Germany.

Follow the jump to read the press release and the full statement from Akio Toyoda.

[Source: Toyota | Image: Mark Thompson/Getty]Continue reading Officially Official: Toyota confirms departure from Formula One

Officially Official: Toyota confirms departure from Formula One originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.



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