JANUARY 17, 2004

Toyota budget is 12% down on 2003

Although Toyota will not say how much it is spending in Formula 1, the team's President John Howett admits that it is not as big as last year, despite additional sponsorship deals from Denso and Intel.

"Toyota is synonymous with lean operations," said Howett, "but we have a comfortable budget. It is less than last year but we will still increase operations. We have a top team budget but it is not as large as people like to believe."

The team does all of its dealings in Euros and so has not been affected by the slide in the value of the dollar.

In part the smaller budget is because the team is no longer adding the same level of capital expenditure as has been the case in recent years when it was still setting up its impressive facilities in Cologne.