The Formula One Team and Toyota announced a multi-year technical partnership on Friday
Toyota: For the first time since 2009, Toyota and the American-owned Haas Formula One team established a multi-year technical agreement on Friday. This marks the return of Japan’s largest automaker to grand prix racing.
Haas agreed in July to extend their arrangement to the end of 2028, meaning they would still employ Ferrari power units.
Coming into their home U.S. Grand Prix in Austin, Texas, next week, Haas, whose team president Ayao Komatsu is Japanese, is now sixth in the constructors’ world championship with 31 points.
Commencing immediately, the collaboration with Toyota Gazoo Racing, the automobile manufacturer’s racing branch, will see branding on the VF-24 vehicles driven by Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen at the Circuit of the Americas.
As an official technical partner, Toyota Gazoo Racing will share resources, skills, and information with Haas. Toyota will provide manufacturing, technical, and design services.
“To have a world leader in the automotive sector support and work alongside our organization while seeking to develop and accelerate their own technical and engineering expertise—it’s simply a partnership with obvious benefits on both sides,” said Komatsu in a statement.
“We clearly want to improve our competitiveness in Formula One, and being able to use Toyota Gazoo Racing’s technical and production processes while also using their knowledge base and resources will be crucial to our growth.
“In return, we offer a platform for Toyota Gazoo Racing to fully utilise and subsequently advance their in-house engineering capabilities.”
Komatsu expressed gratitude to Formula One chief and former Ferrari principal Stefano Domenicali, as well as Ferrari and team manager Fred Vasseur, for helping to build the relationship.
“Cultivate drivers, engineers, and mechanics” was another goal of the cooperation, according to Gazoo Racing CEO Tomoya Takahashi.
Leaders of the Formula One Championship McLaren employed Toyota’s wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany, until their own was operational. Toyota is also involved in endurance racing and the global rally championship.
The seasoned Frenchman Esteban Ocon and the British youngster Oliver Bearman, the Ferrari reserve who has competed twice this season as a stand-in at both Ferrari and Haas, will make up Haas’ whole roster for the next season.
Despite having one of the largest budgets in the sport, Toyota never won a race while they fielded their own team in Formula One in 2002. From 2007 to 2009, they also supplied Williams with engines.
Champion Red Bull is presently partnered with domestic competitor Honda, which departed Formula One in 2008 but came back as an engine manufacturer in 2015. They will begin a brand-new, exclusive partnership with Aston Martin in 2026.
