Former Toyota F1 Designers Found Guilty Of Espionage

WRC, NASCAR now F1 Toyota always cheating in Motorsports!

Toyota will do anything to market their cars!

You're right. Their Lexus division is trying to copy the invincible Germans.

Foolish Japanese....they can't hold a candle to the Germans.

Excuse me! English is my 2nd language and I still can make the difference between cheating and improvement.

What you said has no ground and is completly idiotic.
What you said would have been meaninful if we were talking about copycatting. We all know Toyota doesn't invent any shit, they just copy, improve and mass produce. That's it. Honda had made more effort in inventing than Toyota has ever done in their history.

I know S4 told me to Ignore you but hey :-)

Bimmermike.
By your own arguments you must then Conceede that the American Automakers are no better than the Japanese Automakers because they have nothing in their Vehicle Lineup that can compete with the British / German Ultra-Lux Vehicles or the German / Swedish HyperCars.

"Schumacher" not Schumaker

Interesting news...whatever way you people look at it. It was finding ways to make it better. But at the end of the day, it's that much better to become an orignator to the game. The big boys up at Toyota aren't happy about this, that's for sure.

I hate cheaters, I have no respect for them.

I wonder how much Toyota paid them?

Why called this as Toyota cheating?

NO. LEXUS was there from the start, disguised as a humble automaker called "BENZ." eventually, Mercedesbenz became one brand, and LEXUS became another, but LEXUS was there first. the original IDEAL for the brand was to have Quality, Reliable LEXUS vehicles with HYBRID engines. when one of the engineers wanted to make CHEAP POS GERMAN CARS WITH DIESEL ENGINES, he was thrown out of the company, splitting it in 2! but obviously LEXXUS is better now because there are LEXUS GODS but there are no Mercedesbenz Gods!!!!! LEXUS COULD BUY OUT Mercedesbenz IF THEY WANTED TO!!!!!!! THEY HAVE THEIR OWN EPA!!!!!

Mmm... Lexus...

Toyota should end their F1 program. With the largest budget in F1 their performance has still been abysmal. With this latest news they are starting to look like a real joke! Toyota should stick to marketing passenger cars and engineering public perception; the reality of Motorsports has no place for snake oil salesman!

You wish

Toyota F1 bad = Toyota F1's German employees suck.

Stupdity is not a virtue !! Hence if you know nothing about F1 its better to not post then to let everybody in on your ignorance.
Ferrari/McLaren(Mercedes)/Renault has been implicated about a million times in F1 for underhand and outright cheating. An Italian court ( Maranello anybody ) implicates the two engineers for taking trade secrets !! Any surprises there ?
Btw F1 is not a walk in the park kind of sport. Ferrari despite being devted to the sport to the entirity of its entire corporate budget went without a championship for more then 20 years before Schumacher ended their drought . For the record BMW hasnt won shit yet and Porsche is too poor to race in F1.

There are no BMW F1 and Mercedes F1, but only BMW-sauber F1 and McLaren-Mercedes F1.

"Toyota F1 bad = Toyota F1's German employees suck."

Toyota F1 is currently headed by Tsutomu tomita, a long time Toyota employee from Japan. The team has workers from all over the world, including Japanese, German, Italians, etc.

"There are no BMW F1 and Mercedes F1, but only BMW-sauber F1 and McLaren-Mercedes F1."

BMW bought the team from Peter Sauber. The whole team is owned by BMW, and is run by Dr. Mario Theissen, BMW's Motorsport Director. It's called BMW Sauber F1, instead of BMW F1, to pay tribute to Peter Sauber.

Bought a team is nothing like built a team from scratch.

History of Toyota Cheating

WRC - In 1996 TTE was famously banned for 12 months from the WRC for cheating by designing an illegal air restrictor that included both a bypass mechanism and spring loaded devices to conceal it from scrutineers.

NASCAR - NASCAR announced Wednesday that it has confiscated the primary car of the No. 55 Toyota team that competes in the Nextel Cup Series with driver Michael Waltrip, as a result of rule violations found during pre- and post-qualifying inspection for the Daytona 500.

F1 - see above

Ccoincidence - I think not, there is obviously a culture of cheating at toyota.

The other Toyotas were placing in the bottom of the pack. The top running Toyota was impounded, because it was the only one with the suspect residue.

In fact in WRC it was all their cars!

I guess they got a little smarter in NASCAR and only enlisted the cheating to one team/driver. That way they could make the team/driver the scapegoat when they got caught.

In F1 it was at the corporate level stealing intelligence via personnel.

As far as the other racing series are concerned; they maybe cheating or they might not be. But there are three documented cases where toyota is associated with illegal operations. The amount of circumstantial and direct evidence presented here clearly demonstrates that toyota is up to no good!

And they came back next year and won the championship.

Toyota cheats, they have a history of cheating it has been proven court. Just accept it!

They should stick to the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It seems to be the only series they are consistant at not cheating?

They are very good there, but the level of competition is no where near the level of Nextel Cup.

LexusAdmirer, don't worry about them man, they would take any opportunity they can to smear Toyota reputation. It has "NOT" been proven if Toyota was behind it or not. How do we know if this two idiot is not actually working for someone and trying to screw Toyota reputation. The truth is that we never know the truth until all the information come out.

LexusAdmirer, when the German screw up than we can jump on that bandwagon and flame them until they wish they never a German fanboy.

Just like how the BMW 335i went overheat on the four laps when compare to the Infiniti G.

LEXUS was there from the start, disguised as a humble automaker called "BENZ." eventually, Mercedesbenz became one brand, and LEXUS became another, but LEXUS was there first. the original IDEAL for the brand was to have Quality, Reliable LEXUS vehicles with HYBRID engines. when one of the engineers wanted to make CHEAP POS GERMAN CARS WITH DIESEL ENGINES, he was thrown out of the company, splitting it in 2! but obviously LEXXUS is better now because there are LEXUS GODS but there are no Mercedesbenz Gods!!!!! LEXUS COULD BUY OUT Mercedesbenz IF THEY WANTED TO!!!!!!! THEY HAVE THEIR OWN EPA!!!!!

Mmm... Lexus...

Where the two men actually engineers or "designers"? I'll assume they are engineers given the level of information they would have to know. As far as that is concerned; EVERY engineering society, whether it be ASPG, ASME, IEEE, SPE, et alia, has a "faithful agent" clause in their ethical codes. I.e. An Engineer shall act as faithful agent of their employers, even at times such as they are no longer employed by them.

These two gentlemen will never work as engineers again. They would be immediately removed from whatever professional society they are in and had they undergone to become a professional engineer they would immediately stripped of that title.

The engineering world takes such things VERY seriously.

I don understand that there are cultural issues at work here. Asian cultures in specific seem to have some difficulty wrapping their head around some of these issues. In particular in my experience, the issue of plagiarism. In fact, Chinese sponsored students from the Chinese Petroleum institute were not allowed on my departments' premises because of something which the institute did along these lines.

If Toyota knew about what was going on: The response should be permanent suspension. Period- end of story. There are certain behaviors that do not entitle you to a second chance.

I probably didn't explain well. I don't mean they can strip them of their education. Of course, I am sure there are instances where a degree may be retroactively seized, given it was perhaps awarded early, or something of that nature. They can be stipped of certain titles: like "Professional Engineer", which requires the competion of the FE/EIT Exam as well as a certain number of years in industry [usu. 6 I think], followed by the P.E. Exam which is industry specific. P.E. is actually a license. This is the way it is done in the United States, however, many countries have a similar setup. Last I read they were attempting to establish an internationl P.E. exam.

hey i get how they cheat in wrc, but its not their fualt that the two employes came from ferrari.

German fanboys are insecure and scare of Toyota/Lexus success that is all. Today Toyota announce that they have surpass GM in global sales for the first three months this year.

I would be scare of Toyota/Lexus success too if I were them. Just look at all the commotion Lexus have been causing with their Lexus IS-F. And that thing not even out yet. Imagine if, I "if" the Lexus IS-F out perform the BMW M3 and the Audi RS4. I wonder excuse they are going to use at time, if it happen.

I last time I remember BMW borrow their rearlight design from one Hyundai. What about the BMW 6 Series, remind of the old Dodge version back in early 90s.

My god your argument is weak.

You think you know us all. You DO NOT.

And for god's sake STOP worshipping a car brand. It's unhealthy. It's like you would friggin die for Lexus or something, like it is your friggin leader.

And then you bulls*** all the European car brands if a Euro car fan bad-mouths the leader.

They must be punished, right? Punished for discrediting the leader!

Find yourself another hobby.

"Lexus," i've been sarcastic for most of my brief run on this website so far.

but you are ridiculous.

do you actually believe the crap that spews out of your mouth?

i like my GX470, but geezus, you are insane!!!!! i've owned many other nice cars, and it's not like it has anything completely different from them- mercedes, bmw, audi, lexus... they're all "also-rans." some like one better than others. but your love for lexus is unsettling

F1 story happened in 2003. It was argued that personel Mauro Iacconi and Angelo Santini
used their design knowledge from 2002 ferrari to improve aerodynamics in TF103.

Very weird that today, chef designer Gustav Brunner (General manager and responsible for Toyotas TF103 design ) continues his F1 career in a Ferrari team...

Matt, are you having your PMS again?.........come come down.............breath, so tell how you feel? What a freaking dweeb.

'freaking dweeb'?

Haven't heard many people over the age of 15 call anyone that.

Toyota, get your racing program together!

I really hope Toyota will. F1 needs more strong team, and I would love to see Toyota consistently competing for podiums.

F1 is a fairly incestuous business, lots of designers and engineers go from team to team.

I think the case here is whether the intention was to gather knowledge in advance of leaving Ferrari.

F1 is full of such things anyway, not a season goes by without somebody complaining about something. This year the 'cheaters' are using flexible floors, last year it was mass dampers.... it'll never change, it's part of the innovation in F1. You have to get an edge somehow, Toyota F1 needs it badly - along with some better drivers!

nope, this is IMPOSSIBLE!!!!! some idiot BMW fan made this up!!!! because the LEXUS GODS can control the Earth!!!!! the mighty SEXYOTA designers know how to create Reliable, Quality, SEXY designs for their F1 CARS!!!!!

Mmm... Lexus...

Things haven't changed. Japan stole the BMW003 engine technology from WWII to produce the Ishikawajima Ne-20.

Lexus ALWAYS understates their 0 - 60 times by at least .5 seconds. Here are the results of the 5 Top Luxury Cars in this test which was reported in the January Issue of Car and Driver. Please note these tests were all done on the same day at about the same time and at the same altitude. The results reflect the average of 3 runs and all cars are the 2007 vintage.

Mercedes S550 5.6, 0 - 60 quarter mile in 14.1 (Benz specs show 5.4)
BMW 750iL 5.7, 0 - 60 quarter mile in 14.2
Jag XJ Super 6.0 0 - 60 quarter mile 14.5
Lexus LS460L 6.2 0 - 60 quarter mile 14.6
Audi A8 6.8 0 - 60 quarter mile 15.2

Note that Lexus, as usual, is more than the 5.4 the manufacturer CLAIMS to get by .8 seconds.

Also note the LS430 (prior model the LS460 replaced) was rated at 295 HP and was actually 278 when Lexus corrected their rating. And there were no refunds or apologies from the so-called "quality" car company. ABC - Always Be Careful what you buy from the Lexus people.....