Toyota 'reinvented' following F1 exit

Toyota Motorsport has been 'reinvented' following its departure from F1, according to a source within the team.

Toyota quit F1 following the 2009 season but has since started to take on more staff, with rumours having suggested that a deal could be struck with Hispania Racing to use the TF110, which would have been used by Toyota in 2010.

Such a deal would also have enabled the Spanish team to benefit from the facilities available at Toyota's motorsport base in Cologne, although that deal now appears to be dead in the water due to financial concerns surrounding the F1 newcomers [See separate story HERE].

Despite the apparent end of that deal, Toyota is still in a position to work alongside existing F1 teams with its fully functional wind tunnel being available for hire to enable testing away from the circuit.

"When Toyota decided to retire from Formula 1, we went through a period of deep crisis," the source told Italian website 422race.com. "But we managed to reinvent ourselves, since now we are back hiring staff. Our advantage is that, when we were in Formula One, we invested to build very expensive facilities without immediately thinking of how to gain the money back, because we only had the goal to win. So now we are able to rent those machines which, besides us, only the top teams have available.

"Our wind tunnel is unique and several Formula One teams rent it, too, because it enables them to change elements such as the wing incidence during the test. This has a double benefit: on the one side, we can measure also the values in between the start and the finish one; on the other, to save up to 30 per cent of the time, which is very precious when the Resource Restriction Agreement is in place. The same is for other facilities such as the seven post rig or our simulator, which are rented also by junior formulae teams."

However, the source added that Toyota isn't yet in a position where it builds components for other teams.

"At the moment we don't built complete components for any team, even if we'd like to," he said. "Maybe the teams are too jealous of their designs to make external companies build parts for them!"