Toyota Gazoo Racing and the Haas F1 team announced on Thursday that they are expanding their partnership. More concretely, this will be visible from the 2026 season onwards in the team’s name: the American outfit will henceforth be known as TGR Haas F1 Team.
The news would have been relatively easy to shrug off, but now – for a certain reason – Haas’s press release was combed through carefully, word for word.
The reason for this exceptional scrutiny was, of course, that Kalle Rovanperä will next year set out to pursue his Formula One dream with strong support from Toyota.
Rovanperä announced his major decision in October and, quite by chance, Toyota and Haas are deepening their collaboration in December of the same year.
Well, it was not, of course, a coincidence. Toyota wants a bigger foothold in Formula One, and Rovanperä is the best possible marketing tool for that purpose. The Finn has won two World Rally Championships and, on top of that, he has always been a Toyota man. When you add Rovanperä’s exceptional talent behind the wheel into the equation, it is no wonder that at Toyota’s headquarters there has been a desire to take a bigger bite out of Formula One – and fast.
Haas suits Toyota’s purpose. The American Gene Haas has established the team’s foundation in Formula One, and now, with the deepened cooperation, it can further develop its operations. That will surely suit Haas well, and it suits Toyota perfectly too, since the car manufacturer does not need to start its F1 project entirely from scratch. Toyota had its own team in Formula One from 2002 to 2009, but that project did not cross the finish line in quite the desired manner.
Rovanperä was not mentioned by name in the Haas–Toyota announcement, but much can be read between the lines in the remarks of both Toyota boss Akio Toyoda and Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu. Both refer to that very tantalising point from a Finnish perspective: the aim of the Toyota–Haas cooperation is to bring new talent into Formula One.
Toyota naturally has an interest in getting a Japanese driver into Formula One – especially now that Yuki Tsunoda has been shown the door by Red Bull. But even though Rovanperä is Finnish, he is extremely valuable for Toyota from a marketing perspective as well.
Rovanperä’s road to his great dream, the Formula One series, has now been smoothed. Now everything depends solely on him. A seat will certainly be found if his right foot proves heavy enough in the single-seater categories in the future.
