Toyota F1 to sell 2010 car?

Racecar Engineering had an interesting article that suggested the outgoing Toyota F1 team, based in Cologne Germany, may have a car for sell. The official word was that Toyota would not seek a buyer for the team, like BMW or Honda did, but would close shop completely.

It now seems that Toyota may have been well down the road to building their 2010 challenger and that technical data, detail and intellectual property may be up for sale to the highest bidder. Speculation would suggest that perhaps one of the new teams entering F1 in 2010 may be interested in the car, code named the TF110, to help jump start their program and deliver a competitive car without all the R&D needed to develop one from scratch.

As the story points out, Bruno Senna recently suggested that Campos’s Dallara-built chassis has already passed crash tests and USF1, as well as Lotus F1, have shown pictures of their proposed car. But would this be a big opportunity for them to launch into F1 with the right chassis underneath them?

Manor is utilizing Nick Wirth’s company, Wirth Research, to build their car and it was suggested that as of October, the car was on schedule. There are also Toro Rosso to consider as they are faced with designing their own car for 2010 instead of relying on sister team’s engineering guru Adrian Newey and there is the Hinwill-based team (formerly BMW F1) to consider as well but it is understood that both teams are well into their 2010 car development process.

So who would be interested in purchasing the Toyota gray matter? It is a shame that Toyota has neither the patience or desire to find a buyer for the team as I suggest the best people to use the engineering genius, technical data, and new car ar the folks in Cologne Germany…but that’s just me talking.

~ Thanks to Mahesh for the heads up.

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