We know Toyota has the second largest budget in Formula One after Scuderia Ferrari and yet the results have been mediocre in the extreme. I would argue that to succeed in Formula One, it does not require money alone, but level of competence in management and technical areas as well. Ferrari has outspent all other teams since at least 1986 and yet even with the services of Prost, Mansell, and Schumacher, the championships only came in abundance after 2000.

Looking at this another way, Ferrari from 1996 onwards is a continuation of Benetton from the early 1990’s, with Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne as engineers and designers, Jean Todt as team manager from Peugeot and the services of many others from companies such as Honda and Cosworth involved with the engine development. In short, it was expertise rather than money that was lacking in Ferrari’s development. Taking this argument further, it can be seen that Mclaren and Williams, even when sponsors withdraw funding and engines change, have had a modicum of success, for example Williams-Judd in 1987 and certainly the Mclaren-Ford of 1993 with a combination of an all round competent vehicle and first class driver was something to behold.

Toyota has a football club owners view to management, if one person does not succeed then sack them! This is not how results are achieved in Formula One, it takes the development over years of specific expertise that lends an organisation the stability to develop in reaction to track conditions, technical advances and rule changes. Mclaren, Williams, Benetton and Ferrari have demonstrated that they do this, Honda now can and other teams such as BMW-Sauber and Red Bull are trying to do the same. Toyota remind oneself of the laughable Jaguar concern, a team that utterly failed to manage the finer details of Formula One. Sure, it takes money to succeed in Grand Prix racing, but this is a complicated sport and it take expertise and competence as well to win races and world championships.