Toyota F1 pullout and GRM

So one of the most interesting quotes in the Toyota F1 pullout announcement came at the very end:

"In motorsports it (Toyota) will not only race in various categories, but will also actively contribute to further development of motorsports by supporting grassroots races and planning events in which it is easy for people to participate."

Has GRM started influencing major companies' F1 programs? Are Tim and Margie secretly influencing Jean Todt and Bernie?

Another portion said that they will "move forward by developing exciting production vehicles such as the Lexus LFA supercar and compact rear-wheel-drive sports cars." I assume the latter refers to the Toyota-Subie project, but maybe we'll eventually see a 4th generation MR2? Maybe they'll use their Cologne facilities to get back into WRC? One can hope.

Info at GPUpdate.net.

I am hoping for a return to Le Mans prototype racing.

maroon92 wrote: I am hoping for a return to Le Mans prototype racing.

I am hoping that Toyota starts (again) to build cars that attract performance-oriented enthusiasts. And doesn't stray away from that, like too many times in the past.

A return to endurance racing would be a wise alternative as it embraces real-world technologies and has much more marketing potential.

WRC anybody

oh please make something like the old Suzuki GSX-R4 prototype, but less tech-oriented and more driver-oriented. if you don't know what I'm talking about, go play some GT4 or google it anyway, I hope this means that toyota road cars as a whole will become less boring to drive, especially some of the Scions and small hatchbacks/sedans, and I'd seriously love to see a few new models come out that are seriously driver-oriented machines that reward the ability to drive with fists made of something other than ham

Slyp_Dawg wrote: oh please make something like the old Suzuki GSX-R4 prototype, but less tech-oriented and more driver-oriented. if you don't know what I'm talking about, go play some GT4 or google it anyway, I hope this means that toyota road cars as a whole will become less boring to drive, especially some of the Scions and small hatchbacks/sedans, and I'd seriously love to see a few new models come out that are seriously driver-oriented machines that reward the ability to drive with fists made of something other than ham

Oh please? What does a Suzuki concept have to do with anything? (and the Yamaha OX99-11 is cooler anyways)

Anyways, Toyota was never really an exciting contender in F1. Lots of hype, thin results. Hopefully they get back to building fun, performance-oriented, reasonably-priced cars. (And ditch the Scion tC.)

Toyota needs to learn that staying "Green" does not mean their cars cannot be fun to drive

SlickDizzy wrote: Oh please? What does a Suzuki concept have to do with anything? (and the Yamaha OX99-11 is cooler anyways)

AAhh, memories, the OX99 was the first vehicle I ever worked on after graduating collage. All the initial work was done my I.A.D. (International Automotive Design) in Worthing UK. I was a fresh faced kid out of school. I did initial package work and sizing on the radiators, then spent time in the wind tunnel with first the 1/4 scale then full size model trying different shapes and profiles of the air intakes. We also went up to the local Ferrari dealer to take measurements and notes. We borrowed a new F40 from an owner to take to the wind tunnel as well. The best man from my wedding is also an ex Pat Brit and we worked together on the program. He has the 'honor' of being the first (possibly only) person to crash one!! He was gathering road load data at either Mira. All early testing was at night for security and he hit something and broke the suspension. Happy days.

I could say that was the high point of my career, but there was doing shock development on Tyrell F1 cars and attending the 93 Spa Grand PRix, but that's another story.

Adrian_Thompson wrote:

SlickDizzy wrote: Oh please? What does a Suzuki concept have to do with anything? (and the Yamaha OX99-11 is cooler anyways)

AAhh, memories, the OX99 was the first vehicle I ever worked on after graduating collage. All the initial work was done my I.A.D. (International Automotive Design) in Worthing UK. I was a fresh faced kid out of school. I did initial package work and sizing on the radiators, then spent time in the wind tunnel with first the 1/4 scale then full size model trying different shapes and profiles of the air intakes. We also went up to the local Ferrari dealer to take measurements and notes. We borrowed a new F40 from an owner to take to the wind tunnel as well. The best man from my wedding is also an ex Pat Brit and we worked together on the program. He has the 'honor' of being the first (possibly only) person to crash one!! He was gathering road load data at either Mira. All early testing was at night for security and he hit something and broke the suspension. Happy days. I could say that was the high point of my career, but there was doing shock development on Tyrell F1 cars and attending the 93 Spa Grand PRix, but that's another story.

That is awesome! I've always lusted after an OX99-11; it's a shame Yamaha never did better in F1. Especially at Arrows in '97 there was some real potential. When did you work at Tyrrell? Ever work under Dr. Postlethwaite?

SlickDizzy wrote: That is awesome! I've always lusted after an OX99-11; it's a shame Yamaha never did better in F1. Especially at Arrows in '97 there was some real potential. When did you work at Tyrrell? Ever work under Dr. Postlethwaite?

I never worked for Tyrrell, it was still at I.A.D. This was 93 and F1 was just starting to ramp up the technology wars which was to really spell the end for the little guys.

I worked in the test lab at I.A.D. and we had a 4 post rig that was mainly used for durability testing for OEM's. A four poster is basically 4 massive hydraulic rams that sit one under each wheel. You go out and drive the vehicle over whatever surface/rout you wish with lot's of accelerometers and strain gauges on the vehicle to record loads. You then put the car on the rig and play white nose at it through the rams and record the loads/accel. Through an iterative process you then match a known input to a recorded accel/strain. This allows you to create a file that recreates on the rig the events (or portion of) from the real world data. You then use to an accelerated durability in the lab. This is all pretty low tech now and didn't allow for wheel torque etc although that came later.

For Tyrrell we put the F1 car on the rig. We then added two extra hydraulic rams front and rear pulling down on the chassis to simulate downforce. We ran a series of experiments to measure damper response under different conditions. This allowed them to understand the what the dampers were doing to help with set up of the car. I was just a kid who was all starry eyed at even touching a then current F1 car. I didn't really do much except figure out some of the mountings for the downforce simulating hydraulics. Way effing cool though :)

The real upshot was they lent us some pit passes for that years Spa Grand Prix. I watched the start of the race from the first corner then went into the pits. Yup, I was 6' away from the cars during the race. One of the automotive highlight of my life, I even got into some of the other teams pit's although McLaren, Williams and Ferrari were way off limits. I got about 6-7 driver and former drivers autographs in the program which is lost in a box somewhere in England. My almost claim to fame was that I was 2 feet from Ayrton Senna with program and pen in my hand, I called his name and he turned towards me, I went to pass the prog and pen when a hand literally grabbed me, pulled me back and threw me to the ground. Senna was then instantly surrounded by a mob of reporters with cameras, TV and sound. I was left sitting there thinking WTF. When I was grabbed I had ASSumed it was his security or something, but no it was just reporters they were vicious bastards! So I nearly got his autograph, at least I saw the man close up. I did piss off Thierry Boutsen though, I'd got his autograph on the Friday or Saturday and forgot, yes I saw enough F1 drivers to forget which ones I'd seen and got autographs from!! So I approached him again on the Sunday, he was about to sign his picture in the program when he saw he'd already done it! So he then threw the program back at me saying something that would run afoul of the filters here and stalked of head down mumbling about stupid British fans.

One more thing.

You've never lived until you've stood watching the early Sunday morning F1 warm up while eating a real Belgian waffle from a real Belgian waffle maker and drinking hot chocolate, stood on the side of the hill at Pouhon. The mist is heavy in the mountains and the world is quiet waiting for them to start. Early on the cars only come through occasionally, so you can hear a car all the way up Kemmel then though Les Combs and Bruxelles before they burst into view, go through Pouhin and fly past. Back then we thought 12,000rpm was high. It's spine tingling stuff.

It was cool having F1 at Indy, but despite the history and heritage crap of the 500 it's a damn soulless place. Standing in the woods and seeing Fq cars is a whole nuther thing. The only thing that comes close is stood out in the woods at night with the staccato of a rally car wastegate barking in the distance, then the lights flashing though the trees and finally a car flies past sideways as your stood above it on a snow bank on the inside of a corner.

One more one more thing!

Eau Rouge may look tight and steep on TV, but that ain't sh!t compared to seeing it in reality. You can almost feel you own spine compress as you watch them.

Yeah, I was a real lucky bastard

I was going to post some lame comment about Toyota not making any cars I've found even semi interesting since the 80's (other than the MR2/MRS which I've found interesting, but not enough to own one), but now after all the talk of F1 and waffles I forgot to complain about Toyota and their cars lack of soul. Good stories Adrian!

TJ wrote: I was going to post some lame comment about Toyota not making any cars I've found even semi interesting since the 80's (other than the MR2/MRS which I've found interesting, but not enough to own one), but now after all the talk of F1 and waffles I forgot to complain about Toyota and their cars lack of soul. Good stories Adrian!

Thanks, and see my sig for thoughts on Turdbota's.

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Eau Rouge may look tight and steep on TV, but that ain't sh!t compared to seeing it in reality. You can almost feel you own spine compress as you watch them.

I heard some of the F1 drivers say that the aproach to Eau Rouge was like staring at a wall, it was so steep.

The closest other turn I've seen to it was the original turn 10 at Road Atlanta (no cool French name.. just turn 10). It has since been reconfigured because so many of the drivers and cars couldn't handle the intense elevation change, compression and suspension breakage.

SlickDizzy wrote:

Slyp_Dawg wrote: oh please make something like the old Suzuki GSX-R4 prototype, but less tech-oriented and more driver-oriented. if you don't know what I'm talking about, go play some GT4 or google it anyway, I hope this means that toyota road cars as a whole will become less boring to drive, especially some of the Scions and small hatchbacks/sedans, and I'd seriously love to see a few new models come out that are seriously driver-oriented machines that reward the ability to drive with fists made of something other than ham

Oh please? What does a Suzuki concept have to do with anything? (and the Yamaha OX99-11 is cooler anyways) Anyways, Toyota was never really an exciting contender in F1. Lots of hype, thin results. Hopefully they get back to building fun, performance-oriented, reasonably-priced cars. (And ditch the Scion tC.)

well, the OX99-11 would be a bit out of the reach of practicality, at least the GSX-R4 has the advantage of being proportioned roughly like an Audi TT with the roof and windscreen shaved off flush with the hood/deck lid, thus making relatively routine tasks a LITTLE bit easier. I do use the term practicality loosely, though, it would be about as practical as an Elise or an Ariel Atom or a Caterham, but if you don't build the car to be a daily driver, that gives you a LOT of leeway with the driving dynamics, the amount of power, and how manageable it is. if you build a car to appeal to the masses, you have to make it manageable enough for the least talented among said masses, but if you cater to a much more focused and presumably skillful demographic, you can make the car require more skill to drive but at the same time, you can make it reward the driver a lot more when they drive the car near the limit or right at the limit. that kind of leeway could produce a truly spectacular car. Toyota has their fair share of FWD engine/transaxle combos, and I'm reasonably sure you can still get a FWD toyota/scion with a true manual gearbox, and I suppose they could re-purpose some of their F1 designers/developers to work on the suspension and brakes and aero tweaks, and I do so very much hope they could find someone to create a nice, few-frills, driver-oriented interior

while we're on the topic of possible designs for a new Toyota sports car (other than the FT-86, of course), I've always been rather fond of the design of the Autozam AZ-1 Type B prototype, just upsized a teensy bit (Japanese Kei cars are rather, well, tiny for American roads) and made a little bit wider for the length. other than that, I am reasonably fond of the design, it seems like the love child of a very late-model Corvair coupe (for the front end) and a Lancia 037 (for the basic proportions), but then again I have, shall we say, interesting tastes in car designs

NYG95GA wrote:

Adrian_Thompson wrote: Eau Rouge may look tight and steep on TV, but that ain't sh!t compared to seeing it in reality. You can almost feel you own spine compress as you watch them.

I heard some of the F1 drivers say that the aproach to Eau Rouge was like staring at a wall, it was so steep. The closest other turn I've seen to it was the original turn 10 at Road Atlanta (no cool French name.. just turn 10). It has since been reconfigured because so many of the drivers and cars couldn't handle the intense elevation change, compression and suspension breakage.

Spa has always been THE measure of a driver's skill committment, even after its' emasculation. The original course configuration included the Masta Kink, a sequence described as requiring a downshift (or two) for a normal road car, but one where racers took it flat out.

Here's a link that shows the "kink" and why it earned its' reputation:

http://theracingline.net/racingcircuits/racingcircuits/archives/Spa1990/MastaKink.html

Ahh, Road Atlanta's "Gravity Cavity", AKA Turn 10, sadly missed as a turn that separated racers from posers.

As for Toyota leaving F1 - no problem. They raced like they produce cars - NO passion. If they had "heart" like they had money, they'd have had far better results - on track and on the sales floors.

oldsaw wrote: Spa has always been THE measure of a driver's skill committment, even after its' emasculation. The original course configuration included the Masta Kink, a sequence described as requiring a downshift (or two) for a normal road car, but one where racers took it flat out. Here's a link that shows the "kink" and why it earned its' reputation: http://theracingline.net/racingcircuits/racingcircuits/archives/Spa1990/MastaKink.html

Time to add 'Grand Prix' back to my Neftlix cue again, the wet race at spa was amazing, really showed what F1 used to be