People

Richard Cregan

Irishman Richard Cregan started his career as a mechanic working for Aer Lingus, Ireland's national airline, between 1976 and 1984. His passion for rallying led to him to move to Germany to join Toyota Team Europe as a mechanic. At the time the team was enjoying success on the safari rallies in Africa with Bjorn Waldegard and Juha Kankkunen. The team then began to develop cars for the World Rally Championship and by the late 1980s Toyota becoming a big name in rallying, winning the World Championship with Carlos Sainz in 1990 with the Toyota Celica 4WD.Toyota Motor. Cregan moved through the ranks and eventually became operations manager for the team, set up the team's manufacturing operations in 1992 and to oversee a string of WRC successes in the years that followed. He was then involved with the organisation of the team's Le Mans 24 Hours project before laying the groundwork for the F1 team. He then took on the role of being the team's general manager but since August 2004 has added the role of F1 team manager as well, looking after all aspects of the team.