Despite pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into Formula One, Toyota were a catastrophic failure.
First Era (2002–2009): Factory Team, Jordan, Midland, Williams
After experience in rallying and endurance racing, Toyota began in F1 in 2002 with drivers Allan McNish and Mika Salo.
It seemed that they were destined for success, as they scored points on debut with a sixth place finish for Salo in Australia. Two rounds later they scored another sixth with Salo in Brazil, but overall, their first three seasons were generally pretty underwhelming considering their budget: 27 points was all they got. No podiums, poles or wins.
2005 was the beginning of Toyota seeming to rise up the rankings, overtaking the likes of Sauber, Williams and BAR-Honda to finish fourth with five podiums. They had one of the best driver lineups on the grid with Grand Prix winners Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher. This season they started supplying the Jordan team, who had been bought by Midland for 2006. They took a podium in the controversial US Grand Prix with Tiago Monteiro.
But 2006 and 2007 were steps back. They didn’t adjust to the change from V10 to V8 power as well as other teams had and struggled. Midland were woeful and scored no points in 2006 before being bought by Spyker and changing to Ferrari engines. They had began supplying Williams, who were outperforming Toyota, similarly to McLaren against Mercedes last year. One podium came with the factory car and one with Williams during this time. 2007 in particular was a disaster. Ralf Schumacher left at the end of the year and was replaced by Timo Glock.
By this stage, Toyota were one of F1’s biggest spenders and when the global financial crisis of 2008 hit, their finances took a huge plummet and with no results to show, Toyota decided to pull out of F1 at the end of 2009. Whilst two podiums did follow in 2008, they still hadn’t won a Grand Prix. They’d taken two poles, but one couldn’t be attempted (2005 US Grand Prix) and one was due to fortune with the weather (2005 Japanese Grand Prix), eight podiums and one fastest lap.
Their final season was their best since 2005, as they scored five podiums and even locked out the front row in Bahrain, but they never got over the hurdle of winning a Grand Prix and left F1 with no wins, 13 podiums (17 as an engine supplier), three poles and four fastest laps.
Second Era (2024-): Partnership with Haas
It was announced ahead of the US Grand Prix in 2024 that Haas and Toyota Gazoo Racing, Toyota’s motorsport division, had signed a deal to have a technical partnership, with mixed messages coming out of the company about whether or not they will return to F1 full-time. They also have a driver in F2 in Ritomo Miyata and are sponsoring Hitech Grand Prix, a team in F2, F3, GB3, F4 and F1 Academy.