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Japanese Staff Push Toyota's F1 Program Ahead while Navigating Cultural Differences
• What unique experiences and thoughts have you had working full time in Toyota’s F1 program? The F1 series consists of 18 or 19 races around the world, and I am sure that at least some Japanese staff members follow the team. It must be tough for you to always be at the circuit no matter where in the world the race is being held. Having actually gone through the experience, how do you feel about it?
First you have to understand that I love racing. I have never felt that going to F1 races around the world is a burden. Of course, it’s tough on you physically, so you have to take care of yourself not to get sick. Still, I’m not the only Japanese involved in Toyota F1 racing. There are about 30 Japanese nationals from Toyota Motor Corporation in Cologne, working in different departments related to F1. Those people have spent almost their entire careers working on production cars at Toyota,
but in Germany, they are working on testing, mathematical modeling, design and what have you. Only a few actually go out to the circuits.
If you talk to each one of them, you’ll get a better understanding, but there are differences between how Japanese and Europeans think, there’s a language barrier and there are other problems to overcome. The other thing is that this is a world where this type of work has to be done extremely quickly. You have to get your point across to and persuade others, so it’s a lot of work just making sure your job moves forward smoothly. Of course, everyone enjoys racing—they are all
here because they have a love for the sport. It’s demanding work—every day is hard—but everyone does their best with no complaints.
The Japanese staff in Germany are the best. Although I understand they encountered some difficulties early on, especially coming into a completely new field such as F1, within six months they had become comfortable with their work and the environment. They are really exceeding all of the expectations we had of them. From my perspective, they are extremely dependable. Having at least one Japanese national in each of our F1 operations means I have a constant flow of information, and that makes it
easier for me to know what’s going on at any point in time. In other words, it’s a great help to me in my job, and it’s a wonderful opportunity for them to learn. It’s also a way for Toyota to understand all of the F1 operations, and provide feedback to the Toyota's commercial car production departments.
• I see. With Japanese nationals involved in every aspect of your operations, they accumulate experience and know-how, which becomes an asset to the overall Toyota organization.
Exactly.
How Toyota Applies Feedback from the F1 Program to their Production Cars
• By the way, how does Toyota link feedback from the F1 technology to its production cars? Is it in the specific areas of engineering developed for F1?
I think you should look at it in terms of short-phase and long-phase. For example, the materials developed for use in the F1 car can’t go directly into the production cars. On the other hand, techniques and know-how for improving machining precision, improving measurement precision, creating new parts in a short amount of time…these are things that can be applied to production car manufacturing back at Toyota right away. As a matter of fact, the types of areas I just discussed are actually
being implemented at Toyota as we speak.
• These are things that Toyota has learned by competing in the unforgiving world of F1 racing?
That’s right. For production cars, a test build can take between four and eight weeks, which is just an accepted standard in the industry. If we took that much time for our F1 project, we’d have already missed several races.
• I understand that this season you have already accomplished several new developments in a short amount of time. You unveiled the new car on January 8, but the TF105 sent to Barcelona testing in mid-February had a completely new aerodynamics package. I imagine the car will undergo a lot of evolutionary changes at a rapid clip during the course of the year. What should fans be looking for?
The most important area to us is aerodynamics. To really catch and surpass the top teams, we have to quickly move forward in designing and developing our aerodynamics. At this point in time, our development is geared toward implementation during the European leg of the series, but as soon as we discover anything new and useful, we ship it out to the cars as quickly as possible, wherever they might be racing. Just because we’re developing for the European leg doesn’t necessarily mean we
have to wait until then. If we can do it in time, we’ll get it out to Bahrain or even the second race in Malaysia before that. This year we really have an attack philosophy, and that has shown up in our willingness to develop and implement improvements with an extremely short turn-around time.
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