Toyota raced in F1 for eight seasons between 2002 and 2009(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Why Toyota quit F1 in 2009 and how they did as return with current team confirmed

Drivers such as Ralf Schumacher, Jarno Trulli and Olivier Panis are among those who represented Toyota's works F1 team, which began racing in 2002 before the company pulled out in 2009

by · The Mirror

One of the world's biggest carmakers is back in Formula 1 after 15-year absence.

Toyota last raced in the world championship in 2009. At the end of that season, after the parent company announced financial losses for the year, it ceased its F1 operations and it's place on the 2010 grid went instead to Sauber.

Now the Japanese firm is back - not with its own team, but in collaboration with an existing one. Toyota's Gazoo Racing motorsport division has entered a technical partnership with Haas which could lead to them becoming an engine manufacturer again in the future.

F1 was not in the best place financially the last time Toyota were involved and, now the sport is in a boom period, they don't want to be left out any longer. And Haas hope some of the very clever people employed at Gazoo Racing can help push them further up the grid in the coming years.

Compared to what Haas have managed since they joined the F1 grid in 2016 - the American squad has never stood on the podium - Toyota's works team record was impressive. From their first foray on the grid in 2002 to their exit at the end of 2009, they secured 13 top-three finishes.

However, Haas have always been underdogs with a limited budget while the same could not be said of Toyota. From when they first entered F1, they reportedly had one of the biggest budgets on the grid which makes that baker's dozen of podiums rather underwhelming - especially as not a single one of them was a race victory.

The first didn't come until 2005, by which time drivers like Britain's Allan McNish, Finn Mika Salo, Frenchman Olivier Panis and Brazilian pair Ricardo Zonta and Cristiano da Matta had already come and gone. It was Italy's Jarno Trulli, in his first season with the team, who broke their podium duck with back-to-back second place finishes in Malaysia and Bahrain.

Timo Glock, left, and Jarno Trulli formed Toyota's final F1 driver line-up in 2009( Image: AFP/Getty Images)
Ralf Schumacher is another notable former Toyota F1 driver( Image: Getty Images)

His team-mate that year, Ralf Schumacher, also managed a couple of third place finishes later in the year as Toyota finished an impressive fourth in the constructors' championship. They would never match or better that result, but they did establish themselves as a solid midfield outfit and, after that, didn't finish below sixth until their exit from the sport.

Schumacher left at the end of 2007 and was replaced by fellow German Timo Glock, who went on to famously have the final lap mechanical problem at the 2008 Brazil season finale which saw Lewis Hamilton overtake him to snatch the championship from Felipe Massa.

Though 2009 would be their final campaign, Toyota were regular point-scorers and started the year with three podiums in the first four races. Two more followed later in the campaign before Glock was replaced by Kamui Kobayashi for the final two Grands Prix, after suffering leg and back injuries in a crash at Suzuka. Incidentally, Kobayashi now drives for Toyota Gazoo Racing and is also team principal of their World Endurance Championship squads.

Team principal Tadashi Yamashina wipes tears from his eyes at the press conference announcing Toyota's exit from F1( Image: AFP via Getty Images)

From 2005, Toyota was also an engine supplier to other outfits on the grid. Their first customer was Jordan Grand Prix, who remained a customer in 2006 when they changed guise to Midland F1 Racing before it was sold and rebranded to Spyker.

They then changed engine supplier to Ferrari, but Toyota managed to land a new customer in Williams for the 2007 season. They powered the team to three podium finishes in as many seasons but Williams had already declared their plan to return to using Cosworth power units before the Japanese manufacturer quit the sport.

Announcing the company's departure from F1, then-Toyota president Akio Toyoda said they had no option but to walk away due to the "severe economic realities" of the world following the 2008 global financial crisis. It was the third OEM to withdraw from the championship in the space of a year, after BMW in July and Honda the previous December.

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