What’s behind Toyota’s Latvala-as-team boss gamble?

Toyota does love a handy Nordic wheelman at the helm of its World Rally Championship campaign. Should we have seen this one coming?

Ove Andersson, Tommi Mäkinen and… Jari-Matti Latvala.

I’ve got to be honest, I was blindsided. Blindsided, admittedly, by Latvala himself. We talked in the summer about the potential for running his own team and he eschewed such thoughts. He wasn’t, he told us, done with the driving. Not yet.

The plan was to sit out this coming season and keep his powder dry for 2022 when he wanted to come storming back into the championship to show the world how to drive the next generation of cars.

“Alain Prost,” Latvala said.

Excuse me?

“Alain Prost. He did it. He took a season out and came back very strong. That’s what I would like to do.”

What happened to that plan?

It got flushed. That’s what.

When Japan comes knocking with an offer like this one, you think very long and very hard about the longevity of career plan Mk I. Before evolving a Mk II.

But what sort of boss will Latvala be?

Well, there’s nobody in the world with more experience of the World Rally Championship. With 209 starts (13 more than Carlos Sainz and a whopping 39 more than the next most experienced in the current field, Dani Sordo), Latvala has seen just about everything the WRC has to offer. Except the Safari. He never did a Safari Rally. Kenya left the WRC four months before Latvala arrived as a fresh-faced 17-year-old in 2002.

At 35, Latvala will be the youngest of the three current team principals – M-Sport’s Richard Millener is a year older – sitting around the table in meetings with the other WRC stakeholders. Fortunately, if the meeting goes south, Latvala and his opposite number at Hyundai Motorsport Andrea Adamo can sort the issue out with some WRC Celebrity Deathmatch. My money’s on the Italian; he can tell Latvala what colour overalls his co-driver Steve Harris was wearing when the pair started the Dukeries Rally in a Renault Clio 18 years ago. And what they had for breakfast.

Talking of having things for breakfast, I fear Latvala could find himself served up before Adamo, Millener and, on occasion M-Sport’s biggest gun, managing director Malcolm Wilson.

Four world championship titles offered Mäkinen the opportunity to elevate himself above Millener, Wilson and Adamo. But beyond that sporting pedigree, Puuppola’s fastest had also run his own Tommi Mäkinen Racing operation selling and servicing Subaru Group N cars. He had a handle on the commercial side of the sport.

Latvala has neither the crowns nor the corporate experience. It’s hard to imagine him wielding the same sort of disruptive, belligerent force Tommi could bring to bear in what he believed to be Toyota’s best interest.

And, out in the field, what will be the response from Sébastien Ogier when Latvala instructs him to slow down and settle for second place behind team-mates Elfyn Evans or Kalle Rovanperä?

It’s in that moment that the spectre of Latvala the team principal comes into sharp focus. Ogier is a man who systematically dismantled Latvala’s psyche. By the end of their time together at Volkswagen, Latvala’s self-confidence and mental strength had been comprehensively undermined.

Ogier took no pleasure in that. He just did his job as a professional driver.

Away from rallies, Ogier has only the warmest and fuzziest of memories of his friend who wore the same overalls as him for four seasons.

Back on rallies for one more year, that dynamic has shifted considerably and it’ll be interesting to watch Latvala’s man-management style around the seven-time World Rally Champion. He’s had a few role models in his former team principals.

Wilson tried everything with Latvala. He did the arm around as well as the hair dryer treatment. Volkswagen’s Jost Capito offered a shoulder to cry on, while Mäkinen offered straight up, no-nonsense sisu. Much as Wilson, Capito and Mäkinen tried, none of them truly found the key to unlocking the title-winner in Latvala. He was always one of the fastest and bravest drivers through his time in the WRC, but his inability to climb out of a thoroughly trashed rally car and shrug his shoulders was what held him back.

Nobody knows Latvala better than himself. He’s written a book recently and perhaps the cathartic process of self-inspection has offered further insight into his competitive character. If so, he can use that moving forwards into his new job.

Partly for the reasons detailed above, there will be doubters. And, doubtless, those doubters will be the same voices that told us, mid-way through 2016, there wasn’t a hope of Mäkinen’s Toyota program making the start of Monte six months down the road.

And, if he did make it, his Yaris WRC would be nowhere for at least another six months.

How quiet those voices went when second on round one became first on round two. Six months? Try two rallies.

And the one man who believed in Mäkinen more than anybody else?

Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda. As the most powerful man in the automotive industry, Toyoda’s a strong ally. Not to mention a man of vast experience with a wealth of knowledge, business acumen, commercial strength and sporting virtue.

I sat down with Toyoda in Finland a couple of years ago and was astonished at both the depth of this man’s understanding of and passion for rallying.

It’s the rally man in Toyoda that has reached out to Latvala.

When Mäkinen departed as team principal for a new role as Toyota’s motorsport advisor, Toyoda said one face came to mind immediately for his replacement.

Step forward Jari-Matti.

Latvala’s appointment is a surprise one – and it would be fascinating to get Mäkinen’s take on his replacement – but Toyoda proved the doubters comprehensively wrong last time and what’s to say he won’t do it again.

Toyoda’s case for Latvala: “His ability as a manager is unproven, but the attributes that we have in common between us were the deciding factors for entrusting the team to him. I believe these will bring the strength to the team.

“I trust him to lead the new Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team and I’m looking forward to climbing up onto the roof of the Yaris WRC with him.”

Fortunately for Latvala, Toyota’s management structure is one of the strongest in the history of the world championship. Technical director Tom Fowler’s Yaris WRC not only won on its second outing, but has lifted a world championship for the last three years. That technical prowess is complemented by a world-leading sporting director in Kaj Lindström and project director in Yuichiro Haruna.

It’s fair to assume, certainly in the outset, that Toyota’s WRC assault will be led by this committee of four rather than Latvala’s lone voice.

The one thing we haven’t done here is perhaps offer sufficient weight to Latvala’s experience.

When January comes and Toyota’s junior drivers Rovanperä and Takamoto Katsuta are fretting about the weather coming in and threatening the third stage in the loop, it’s Latvala who will be able to reach back to what he did on those very roads in those very conditions 17 years ago. In a sport where experience counts for so much, knowing somebody like Latvala has your back is as comforting as it is an essential ingredient for success.

Quite how J-ML would have dealt with Katsuta’s third accident in as many rallies in Monza earlier this month is interesting. Having spent a good deal of time in that particular glass house, it would be tricky for Jari-Matti to start throwing stones…

As an ambassador, Toyota couldn’t have picked anybody better.

Back to Toyoda: “He always thinks of the fans and of his team-mates.

“Being one of the top drivers, I often saw him running up to fans as soon as he got out of the car at the service park. He cared about everybody in the team like mechanics and engineers and always talked to them. I believe this kind of attitude and character empowered the team a lot and helped lead to the manufacturers’ title.

“When I first met him, he was wearing Volkswagen overalls, but he talked to me about his old Celicas and Corollas with a huge passion. The following year, he changed his overalls to Toyota’s. He loved our Yaris WRC, took very good care of it, and made it stronger.

“As a car guy who loves cars, I still remember how happy I was to see his love for cars and love for Toyota.”

And that love for Toyota will rarely have burned so brightly as it does now.

It’s time to forget Alain Prost. The comeback’s not coming anymore. Latvala’s on a different road now.

I’ve been doing this job a long time now. I’ve met and worked with an awful lot of drivers, but few have ever matched the passion Latvala has for the sport.

“Now as team principal, I have to see the bigger picture,” said Latvala. “I have to motivate everybody in the team to work together to achieve the best results.

“It’s a new challenge and I’m up for it.”

The world will wait and watch with interest.

Good luck Jari-Matti.