With the sad passing of Ove Andersson and the French Grand Prix coming up this weekend,
Toyota is determined to achieve a strong result to honour the memory of the man who brought the team into Formula 1 in 2002.
What's more, the race will mark a year since Tadashi Yamashina took over as chairman of the big budget Japanese outfit, and Yamashima-san has been reflecting on the past twelve months, whilst simultaneously looking ahead to what he predicts will be an exciting future for the team.
“I have enjoyed it very much,” he enthused, “and I have especially enjoyed getting familiar with all the team members and the different cultures within our team. I know the performance and the teamwork of all my colleagues is getting better and better.
“Everyone is very motivated and one of the big jobs for me is to encourage all the people in our team, not only the race team but also the team members back at the factory, in every department. I want to encourage all of them and I am enjoying this job very much.
“I very much enjoy the challenge of competing in
Formula 1. This job is very different to my previous foreign assignment at Toyota Technical Centre USA because the results are so immediate.
“We race every two weeks and after every race we must face the consequences, so if the race has not gone well we are disappointed and we have to take action.
“I think the team has changed and improved. From a technical point-of-view, everyone at the factory and in the race team has increased car performance and reliability – this is clearly seen from our results.
“When we set ourselves a target, every engineer and every team member is making a strong effort to achieve it. Everyone is contributing, and I am proud of their efforts because we are seeing the results.”
