John Howett (born 26 July 1952) was the President of Toyota Motorsport, and the

Toyota F1 Panasonic Toyota Racing was a Formula One team owned by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation and based in Cologne, Germany. Toyota announced their plans to participate in Formula One in 1999, and after extensive testi ...

team. Howett (

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

) joined

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

in the late 1970s as a team coordinator for

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

-based

Toyota Team Europe Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe GmbH (TGR-E), formerly Andersson Motorsport GmbH and Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), is a fully-owned and controlled entity of Toyota Motor Corporation, based in Cologne, Germany, which provides motorsport and automotiv ...

, run by former

boss

Ove Andersson Ove Andersson (3 January 1938 – 11 June 2008), nicknamed ''Påven'' ("the Pope"), was a Swedish rally driver and the first head of Toyota's F1 programme. Early life Andersson was born in Uppsala and grew up on a remote farm. His father bough ...

. Moving back to

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in 1980, he worked for Toyota in after-sales service. In 1991, he returned to

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, and worked his way up to be Vice President for

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota. The Lexus brand is marketed in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide and is Japan's largest-selling make of premium cars. It has ranked among the 10 largest Japanese ...

sales and marketing. In early 2003, Howett moved to

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

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, where he was made President of Toyota Motorsport, a position he has maintained until June 2010. After a start to the 2007 season that saw Toyota maintain 5th in the constructors' standings after the first three races, Howett said the team were looking to chase 3rd placed

BMW Sauber BMW has been involved in Formula One in a number of capacities since the inauguration of the World Drivers' Championship in . The company entered occasional races in the 1950s and 1960s (often under Formula Two regulations), before building ...

and break away from the front of the midfield bunch of teams, which would go a step further to fulfilling their pre-season ambitions. In 2009 Toyota announced that it would no longer be involved in Formula 1 racing and this also meant that he could no longer be deputy chair of

Formula one Teams Association The Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) was a group of Formula One teams that formed at a meeting in Maranello on 29 July 2008. The organisation was formed to give the teams a united voice in negotiations with the FIA and the Formula One Gro ...

(FOTA). In 2010 Howett was replaced as President by Executive Vice President Yoshiaka Kinoshita and his role changed to being an adviser.

References

External links

Toyota Motorsport GmbH official site
Toyota people British motorsport people Formula One people Living people 1952 births {{F1-bio-stub