Anonymous wrote:
Not necessarily. For example Peugeot failed to win a single race in F1 as engine supplier only. They had huge motorsport experience and they’ve been in F1 for almost a decade with no luck – Mclaren, Jordan, Prost… They’ve also arrived in F1 after dominating 24 Le Mans and Group C which is similar to Toyota’s journey. Mercedes was also there hiding under Sauber’s skin at first (concept by Mercedes) and it also had to wait 6 or 7 seasons for first victory and almost a decade for WCC and WDC.
Perhaps Toyota can afford to wait for the title as much as it takes but than they’ll prove nothing if they win WCC many seasons after they’ve planed. I think I’ve read on their site that 2006 for them is “the year” just like 2005 was for Renault (planned). They can make good car for 2006 but I don’t think that either Ralf or Jarno have the quality for a balanced season performance. Only way for Toyota to win would be a superior car which would forgive driver's errors which goes for Jarno but making a crash-proof car for Ralf is utopia.
I'm not sure I would use Peugeot or Sauber (Mercedes) as an example in this case. I think that you'll have a hard time coming up with a perfect example - the one that can compare to current Toyota situation.
For example, somebody mentioned Brawn's comments about Toyota being Chelsea of F1. While I understand what he was trying to say, comparing one to another doesn't make any sense. Chelsea was a team even before Abramovich decided to buy it. So, at least, he had a foundation on which he could build a team. Toyota, on the other hand, didn't start-off by purchasing a team with an existing infrastructure (and not just the buildings - the whole team). Just look at the recent history...Toyota aside, when was the last time a team started from scratch? Next season we will see 2 more manufacturers in F1 - one is Honda (nee BAR), another one is BMW (nee Sauber). Neither one of these 2 menufacturers were there when the original teams were build. I believe that you would have to agree that you'd have a better chances by purchasing a team with a high potential than starting one up. Perfect example - Renault!
Why Peugeot is not a good example? I don't thing that you can compare a manufacturer that is doing everything in-house to the manufacturer that is just supplying the engines to another team - be it McLaren or whaterver. To prove a point, Honda won a race with Jordan but never with a BAR. Does that mean that Jordan builds better cars?
Sauber? Well, if my memory serves me right, at the time, Mercedes was thinking of entering F1 by starting from scratch. Later on, they ended up buying McLaren. How's this relevant? Well, it's possible that Mercedes wanted to use Sauber as a guinea pig. Besides, you don't know whether, within that team, there were two schools of thought, which worked against each other. Just look what happened to Williams/BMW partnership.
I, personally, don't blame Toyota that much for spending so much money. They entered F1 when costs were really getting out of hand, and they had to build everything. As Spencifer_Murphy said, how much money do they spend of F1 in comparison to how much do they make is a drop in a bucked. For a team like Renault which spends just mere 100 million dollars/year, that sum means a lot more to them than Toyota's 300, especially when Toyota is making (i.e. profits, and not revenues) over 10 billion dollars/year.
