Now, Toyota is pinning its hopes on fully implementing its vaunted consensus-management style, which is out of step with the rest of the world of grand-prix racing, to breathe life into its half-billion-dollar-a-year F1 team.
When Tadashi Yamashina took over as Toyota’s F1 boss last year, he began teaching his 650-member team of drivers, engineers, designers, mechanics and support staff that the key to winning can be found in the Toyota way, a set of management principles that helped the company grow from an obscure Japanese auto maker into a global auto giant.
“We encourage teamwork and we always have our minds set on kaizen,” which in Japanese means continuous improvement, says Mr. Yamashina, who manages the team at its headquarters in Cologne.
While governments, hospitals and manufacturers world-wide have successfully copied Toyota’s celebrated philosophy, many racing analysts question whether it is suited to the competitive world of F1. In F1, much of the drama occurs off the racetrack as teams spend millions of dollars researching and building what they hope will be the fastest car. Historically, the most successful teams have been led by strong personalities who function like field generals in battle, calling all the shots not only during the race but also during the design phase.
“To shine in F1, you have to be reactive, very quick in everything,” says Patrick Camus, an F1 analyst and commentator for the French motor-sport magazine Auto Hebdo. The Toyota team, by comparison, is “very heavy to drive, like a boat that’s too large.”
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