[Team] Haas: Gene Haas of NASCAR attempting to start F1 team

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by BertMk2

For me that's a very underwhelming signing - not sure what positives Ocon brings to the team? Is he an upgrade on Magnussen?

I like Kev but yes Ocon is better imo. Haas can design get Dallara to build a tub to fit both drivers now!

[S griffin]

Kevin still has a place. Ocon still has a lot to prove IMO. Haas really have come a long way though. Next year will be crucial

[GTRMagic]

New Team Principal for Audi

[v8supes]

Hahahahaha you couldnt make it up. Haas are only advertising for a financial controller. https://www.racestaff.com/job/financ...m_medium=email

[GTRMagic]

This looks fun..

**Cues Ralf Schumacher complaining that Mick Schumacher isn’t already in the seat **

[Tourer]

Partnership with Toyota officially announced - Toyota GR stickers on the Haas cars from USGP onwards. No doubt more detail to come - relationship with Ferrari remains and Toyota deal sounds more about technical collaboration and parts manufacturing.

[S griffin]

Shame it’s not a full comeback instead of just a technical partnership. Would have been nice to have them supply engines. Haas-Toyota has a nice ring to it

[veeten]

That might be on the cards by '26-'28, so give it time.

[S griffin]

Hopefully. Be nice if they could move away from Ferrari and work with a manufacturer re-entering the series. Could be the making of them

[Richard C]

I guess the rumored Toyota/Haas partnership (discussed in this thread in early July) is happening. Question is... Is this a toe in the water for Toyota to rejoin F1 and with a potential purchase of Haas?

The next speculative jump is if Toyota will be providing an engine in the future. More specifically to the 2026+ specification. Per the very strict engine development cost cap regulations, they couldn't just show up with an engine in 2026. Toyota would need to sign up as a future supplier well in advance. I am pretty sure there is a multi-year lookback period for tracking of cost, equipment and facilities. So if they were to bring an engine, it would have to be some date later than 2026.

I wonder if Toyota is just going to watch how things go in 2025/2026 and then make a decision one way or another about joining in a more substantial way?

Richard

[chillibowl]

With Renault leaving, RB becoming one, Honda staying, Audi joining, Toyota potentially returning, and if a new team is approved then they might have to bring an new engine manu with them…plus Merc and Ferrari of course.

5plus engine makers seems wasteful and far too difficult to manage that many competing agendas.

Would prefer if Toyota just stayed a tech partner and/or made some deal to badge over an existing engine a la Alfa. Probably an unpopular opinion tho.

[flatlandsman]

I think they were so burned by their last effort and it probably cost them something like half a billion to never win a race!

I would guess this is sly a way of getting into F1, exposed to fans, but mainly helping engineers for other programs and their road car and performance car efforts

They will be exposed to so much in F1, yes there will be token drivers allowed a Friday morning etc, but the real stuff here is engineering and developing their engineering staff without having to pay hundreds of millions opout to buy a team.

Actually quite clever if you look at their end game. It also might be a clever way to look at the new rules without having to pay a bunch out to build an engine, you can do a lot of R&D simply by paying a few million to a team as a sponsor

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

I think they were so burned by their last effort and it probably cost them something like half a billion to never win a race.

the wisdom around at the time was that Toyota was blowing approx 1 billion per season & demonstrating how not to do F1.

They retired to the much, much easier world of prototype racing.

As you say, the partnership with Haas could be a good way to ease back into F1 involvement and get themselves sorted in case they do decide to go full bore again.

[GTRMagic]

Why would Toyota partner with a team that has never ever had an inkling or dared to even dream of standing on the top step of the podium?

Wonder how many HaasCNC machines were sold into Toyota factories around the world…?

[flatlandsman]

I would add that prototype racing is very definitely not easier than F1, if you believe that then perhaps you might want to watch some 24 hour races!!

For Toyota they had some years with little opposition but I doubt they were spending a bunch less to fail relentlessly against Audi and Porsche for years in LMP1 either!

[v8supes]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Why would Toyota partner with a team that has never ever had an inkling or dared to even dream of standing on the top step of the podium?

Wonder how many HaasCNC machines were sold into Toyota factories around the world…?

I dont really see what Toyota are going to do here? The rules are set to a point where everyone has basically the same brakes, brake system, suspension design, gearbox design. I mean most of the Haas car is Ferrari "customer" parts anyway (cooling system, hydraulics, engine, gearbox, hybrid, software) I guess the only thing is aero work.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

I would add that prototype racing is very definitely not easier than F1, if you believe that then perhaps you might want to watch some 24 hour races!!

For Toyota they had some years with little opposition but I doubt they were spending a bunch less to fail relentlessly against Audi and Porsche for years in LMP1 either!

So you didn't like someone not being 100% positive about your preferred form of high level motorsport eh? I had to make the comment about easier because the devil made me do it to have a little fun at your expense - sorry.

Prototype racing is different to F1, definitely easier in some ways but there are also aspects of prototype competition that F1 teams don't have to deal with, so a swings and roundabouts situation if I'm going to be open and honest about it.

[Matador]

Originally Posted by GTRMagic

Why would Toyota partner with a team that has never ever had an inkling or dared to even dream of standing on the top step of the podium?

Wonder how many HaasCNC machines were sold into Toyota factories around the world…?

I would dare to say that Toyota uses a bunch of DMG Mori equipment.

Originally Posted by Tourer

the wisdom around at the time was that Toyota was blowing approx 1 billion per season & demonstrating how not to do F1.

They retired to the much, much easier world of prototype racing.

As you say, the partnership with Haas could be a good way to ease back into F1 involvement and get themselves sorted in case they do decide to go full bore again.

LOL this number get bigger every year any one discusses it.


Yes, they spent an eye watering bunch. Yes, they made grave mistakes and learnt harsh lessons. They however were at around 350-400 million, which was not vastly different than Ferrari or McLaren in that era. To their credit, nobody ever really remembers that they also built their **** from scratch. Never mind the extra development money that they had to spend to re-engineer a different engine concept because Ferrari politicked them out of entering with the V12 engine which had mouths all across the paddock buzzing. Of course it was gonna cost them a pretty penny. At the bare minimum they were able to walk away with a state of the art engineering facility that does a lot of work for many areas of motorsport.



Lessons learnt. I'm sure for all this "we're not really coming back" is an exploratory expedition of how to approach F1 today, using those lessons they would have learnt from getting burned. TGR is a much leaner, smarter, flexible and meaner organization today than when it was TTE.

Originally Posted by flatlandsman

I would add that prototype racing is very definitely not easier than F1, if you believe that then perhaps you might want to watch some 24 hour races!!

For Toyota they had some years with little opposition but I doubt they were spending a bunch less to fail relentlessly against Audi and Porsche for years in LMP1 either!

Fun fact. Exactly due to the type of spending on the F1 project, Toyota's budget for WEC was (and still is) far less than anything Audi or Porsche were spending (which were reportedly at near F1 levels some years). Rumors have pegged it between 1/2-1/3 the amount. To this day Even in the "low ocst" hyper car era, they are still quite spending shy and budget conscious, hence why it's not the norm for them to run 3 cars at LeMans (barring the disaster that was 2017).

[bathurst77]

interesting announce this only days after announcing they are entering australian supercars. Would seem senior honchos in japan have rediscovered the taste

[Teretonga]

Originally Posted by bathurst77

interesting announce this only days after announcing they are entering australian supercars. Would seem senior honchos in japan have rediscovered the taste

how to do motor racing on a corporate mini budget.....
Doing WEC, Nascar, F1 , Supercars, but not committing to long term hundreds of millions yet getting enough coverage and inclusiveness to train and educate engineering staff, and actively participate with World-wide recognition, yet a relatively micro budget....

[Mike Harte]

Spoke to my son yesterday in Japan, and one of his responsibilities is to monitor companies such as Toyota, who was one of his clients at his previous firm.

I asked him about this latest move the company, and he responded by telling me that they have been under close scrutiny recently over, amongst other things, being caught up in the testing scandal. His theory is that this could be something similar to what we call "throwing a dead cat on the table"; i.e. announcing something to deflect attention away from something that has been ongoing.

Added to that, Akio Toyoda, the current chairman who is part of the family that created Toyota, likes to think of himself as a bit of a petrol-head, and has steered the company away from the headlong rush into EVs, concentrating more on hybrids and hydrogen propulsion. So a move back, gently, into top echelon motorsport may be because of his desire for the company to be involved without it costing a fortune.