John Howett (born 26 July 1952) is the former 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 join Formula One in 1999, and after extensive testing with thei ...

team.

Career

Howett joined

Toyota is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on August 28, 1937. Toyota is the List of manuf ...

in the late 1970s as a team coordinator for

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

-based

Toyota Team Europe Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe GmbH (TGR-E) is an automotive engineering and motorsport services facility based in Cologne, Germany. It is fully-owned and controlled by Toyota Motor Corporation. TGR-E's principal operation is technical developmen ...

, 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 bou ...

. Moving back to

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

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

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

, and worked his way up to be Vice President for

Lexus is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Toyota, Toyota Motor Corporation. 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 amon ...

sales and marketing. In early 2003, Howett moved to

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, 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 The German automobile manufacturer/brand 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 Form ...

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

Yoshiaki Kinoshita is a former Japanese football player. Playing career Yoshiaki Kinoshita was born in Tokushima Prefecture. He joined to his local club; Tokushima Vortis in 2013. On March 19, 2014, he debuted in J.League Cup (v Albirex Niigata is a pro ...

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