Toyota Gazoo Racing and MoneyGram Haas F1 enter into technical partnership

A return to Formula 1 in the making?


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From left: MoneyGram Haas F1 Team Team Principal, Ayao Komatsu; Toyota Motor Corporation Chairman, Akio Toyoda; and Gazoo Racing Company President, Tomoya Takahashi.

Formula 1 racing in the coming years looks to be even more exciting as Toyota, which once operated a Formula 1 team, may return to the pinnacle of motorsport once again.

Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) and MoneyGram Haas F1 Team have concluded a basic agreement on entering a technical partnership concerning MoneyGram Haas F1 Team vehicle development and collaborative efforts. 

Through this partnership, the two sides aim to contribute to the development of the automotive industry by creating an environment in which young Japanese drivers, engineers, and mechanics can gain experience and grow in the FIA Formula One World Championship (F1), the pinnacle of motorsports.

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Specifically, TGR training drivers, engineers, and mechanics will get the chance to work with the MoneyGram Haas F1 team, gaining valuable experience from motorsports’ most prestigious league.

The drivers get to gain driving experience in F1, and it will allow the engineers and mechanics to learn how to analyze vast amounts of data, such as driving data, to effectively operate a pipeline for such at TGR. The agreement also entails the participation of TGR engineers and mechanics in MoneyGram Haas F1 Team racing car aerodynamics development to cultivate human resources — by having participants design and manufacture carbon-fiber parts in simulated extreme operational environments — who can play active roles on the front lines of the pinnacle of motorsports and reflect the technology and knowledge acquired in production vehicles.

Toyota may not be operating its own F1 team any time soon, however this move definitely suggests there’s interest for it.

TGR continues to compete in motorsports to hone their car manufacturing and build more exciting “driver-first” vehicles. 

: people, pipeline, and product. In the “driver-first” carmaking strongly advocated by Toyota Motor Corporation Chairman Akio Toyoda, aka Morizo, cars are repeatedly broken and fixed in the arena of motorsports, and professional driver feedback is thoroughly incorporated into the development of production vehicles. 

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In recent efforts to strengthen this approach, there is a growing need to enhance people by developing drivers, engineers, and mechanics, to effectively use the pipeline of data analysis and utilization, and to apply insights gained to products through vehicle development. Through the technical partnership, TGR intends to further strengthen people and learn from the MoneyGram Haas F1 Team’s pipeline, which is one of the team’s strengths in F1, to accelerate the creation of ever-better motorsports-bred cars.