The Weekly Grapevine

By any standards it has been an incredible journey, one which has seen an apprentice aircraft fitter progress through the ranks of three of motorsport's premier categories before electing to take up a senior management position at a Formula One facility which promises to be one of, if not the, most spectacular circuits built in recent times.

Along the way triumph has mixed with tragedy, success with failure and honour with humiliation, but through it all Toyota Motorsport GmbH's departing team manager Richard Cregan remained one of the sport's better guys, always ready with a smile and a good word despite the enormous pressures of his job.

The Irishman was in a rut as aircraft mechanic with Aer Lingus when the brainwave hit him: he would use his discounted travel benefits to facilitate a career in international motorsport - as a mechanic. Through amateur rally and rallycross exploits, mainly in a Hillman Imp, he had met some of rallying's names, one being the legendary former co-driver Henry Liddon, then a partner of Ove Andersson in Team Toyota Europe after having navigated for the Swede around the world.

Richard Cregan © LAT

"I've always had an interest in motorsport and when I heard they (TTE) were doing the Safari Rally I wrote to Henry, who I'd met by chance, and offered my services free of charge," recalled Richard on Sunday morning at Interlagos, shortly before a farewell for him had been organised by the team.

"I offered to pay my own way there by using my cheap travel benefits, and work for free. All I wanted was my accommodation paid. About two months before the Safari I received an invitation to join the team on the 1984 Safari Rally, and that is where it all started."

Liddon was, of course, to perish three years later in an aircraft accident while managing TTE's Bandama Rally effort on the Ivory Coast, but, despite the short time they spent together Cregan credits the Brit with teaching him the basic principles of team management.

"I was very lucky to work with him and I still tried to apply what Henry taught me as I became team manager. I learnt a lot from him."

The lessons? "It's about people, and that applies to all forms of motorsport. You know, people look at motorsport and they see the machinery and levels of technology which are hugely important. But if you want to make it work you need a team of people. He always liked to have a multinational team of people, and I have tried to stick to that."

Toyota's F1 team is the most international in the paddock and it can't have been an easy task to meld almost 800 staff representing close to 40 nationalities into a single fighting force.

"No, it's not easy, but I believe you get back what you put in, and if you look within the people themselves, regardless of background and where they come from, each and every individual has something to offer. If you look for that and involve the people, then it will work. That's what happened and it's been fantastic."

But going from mechanic rolling in the sands of Africa to world rally championship-winning operations manager (and onwards to Toyota's Le Mans and F1 projects) was certainly not the work of a moment, as he explains.

The Toyota GT-One racing in the 1998 Le Mans 24 Hours © LAT

"Basically, I started as a mechanic, then went to the gearbox shop as a gearbox and rear axle mechanic for quite some time, then started doing more and more testing. We didn't have a (dedicated) test team in those days, and I introduced some new ideas.

"Ove asked me into his office one day and asked me to put a test team together (in the late 80s). We were looking at the (later aborted) Group S cars, then looked at doing the World Rally Championship with the Celica."

Cregan suggested TTE go the whole hog and establish in-house manufacturing and composites facilities.

"That was fantastic. We didn't have the money, but Ove told me to do it and he would find the money - which is what he was like," remembers Cregan somewhat wistfully, for the Swede's death in a classic car rally in South Africa earlier this year robbed him not only of a former boss and colleague, but also of a good friend.

"That is the basis of what we have today. I went from there to operations manager, responsible for all Toyota's own championship programmes plus customer teams like Griffone and distributor cars worldwide. It was big, you know, we started with a staff of 25, which grew to 90, then to 150, which is what we had when we won the world championships with Didier (Auriol, 1994), Juha (Kankunnen, 1993) and, of course, Carlos (Sainz, 1990/92)."

Ahhh, the Spaniard, whose exploits in the Celica 4WD are legendary. Clearly Cregan holds him in ultra-high regard and immediately recalls that period as a highlight during chapter one of his career at Toyota.

"He was just an amazing guy. Obviously we worked with a lot of great drivers over the years, but he was far ahead of anything we ever had, in terms of structure. He just commanded respect and you would do anything for him. Ove knew he needed a guy to pull the car off, and Carlos was that guy. When he won the championship everybody said 'right guy, right time, right everything'.

"It just became a way of life in the end, winning. If we were second or third it just wasn't good enough. Getting to a certain level is difficult, but motivating people to stay there is even more difficult."

After four drivers' and two manufacturers' titles, the time was ripe for Toyota to seek further challenge, but first the team needed to bounce back from a scandal Cregan remains reticent to talk about.

Didier Auriol and Denis Giraudet in a Toyota Celica GT-4 during the 1995 Tour de Course © LAT

Toyota was expelled from the World Rally Championship for a season by the FIA - followed by another year of self-imposed exile after Toyota's board withdrew the team - after certain team members deviously circumvented turbo boost restrictions.

"That's something we like to forget, it was a sad moment more than anything else. It was a relatively small group of people involved, their careers were based on performance and they were trying to protect their careers. It led to the banning of the team for a year, plus we sat out another year.

"It was a complete departure from what Toyota normally does, and everybody was devastated, nobody more than Ove himself. I mean he offered his resignation, but at the same time he kept it going. If it wasn't for Ove, we would not be here today, not only for the way he handled that situation, but just everything."

During the hiatus Toyota Motorsport GmbH, as the team had become, planned its Le Mans assault - with Cregan as operations manager. Thus in 1998-9 TMG operated both the WRC and Le Mans programmes, rehabilitating itself with a fourth manufacturers' title in the former category in 1999 while narrowly missing out on victory in the endurance classic after a tyre blew in the 22nd hour.

In total, Toyota won 43 WRC events, with Cregan playing a crucial role throughout, but already he was eyeing victory at La Sarthe.

"Andre de Cortanze was project leader and I must say I have never worked with such a passionate engineer. He was a difficult man, but he lived the project. He would talk to his cars, he wanted time alone with his cars, but he was just an amazing character. He was my immediate senior although I reported direct to Ove on some things. Tough to work for, but I would do Le Mans again tomorrow with him if I could."

Le Mans, where the team fielded arguably the most beautiful car ever to blast down the Mulsanne, is considered unfinished business rather than failure: "I still believe if we had done it another year we would have won it, we just needed more practice. But the highlight was working with Martin Brundle, an absolute gentleman who was a super driver and drove the whole project forward, like Carlos did in rallying."

The experience, effectively chapter two in the life and times of the silver-haired Dubliner, provided the perfect bridge between the WRC and F1. "I think Le Mans was a great stepping stone into Formula One. It employed some of the characteristics of rallying whilst enabling us to step into a racing zone."

Despite the entire team, up to around 500 heads by the time the two TF102s hit the track in Melbourne in March 2002, having followed the F1 circus around the world for 10 months in preparation for its debut, Cregan readily admits that Toyota - the only team in F1 to build their entire car under one roof - underestimated chapter three.

Mike Gascoyne and Toyota Executive Vice President Yoshiaki Kinoshita © LAT

"Yes, looking back on it after all the experience, we underestimated the difficulty of it. Maybe only when Mike Gascoyne (ex-technical director, who departed two years into the job after undisclosed disagreements at senior level) came on board did we realise the difficulty of it. He showed us what a fighting spirit was. But we have a great bunch of people who have come up from the Le Mans project, a great engineering team, a great race team, a great test team."

Is the team now fully annealed? "Yes, I would say so. There are always improvements one can do, but I think next year will be the telling year because everybody is back to basics designing a new car to the new regulations, so I think it will show what we can do, show the ability of our technical leadership." (Note: even on effectively Richard's last day with Toyota, certainly in a racing environment, he continues to refer to 'we')

With Toro Rosso having won at Monza, Toyota are now unique in the pit lane in not having won a grand prix in any guise. How far is the team from the holy grail?

"I think we came close to it in 2005, very close. We had a couple of lean years thereafter, but this year we had some good races. Jarno (Trulli) and Timo (Glock) both came close a couple of times. This year we certainly hoped to win races, which we haven't done. I think this has been a great year from both of them, but particularly for Timo."

Which brings us neatly to chapter four - how did the move to Abu Dhabi, where Richard becomes managing director of Abu Dhabi Motorsport Management ahead of the island circuit's first grand prix on 15 November 2009, come about?

"Well, I'd been looking for something new for a while; I had sat down with management and told them I wanted to move on. Toyota has been very good to me and I just wanted to show them the respect they deserve, particularly John (Howett, TMG president). My wife Patricia and I talked and it was clear I did not want to move out of motorsport.

"I spoke to Bernie (Ecclestone) about things that were coming up, but I had thought about Abu Dhabi. We did a lot of rallying in the Middle East and I knew Philippe Gurdjian (the circuit's overall head honcho) from when he ran Paul Ricard and it was our (Toyota F1's) home circuit.

Carlos Sainz and Ove Andersson © LAT

"I think with Philippe's innovation and my attention to detail we aim to put on the best race on the calendar next year." Ever modest, he adds: "Although my title is MD of ADMM, I will be, if you like, team manager, just as one would be in a Formula One team."

In closing, I ask Richard to nominate his all-time favourite driver. "Well it's between Carlos, Martin and Jarno, who I regard very highly - so professional. But when I started with TTE Ove was still testing, and that means driving. So, it's Ove."

In his farewell tribute to Richard, TMG chairman and team principle Tadashi Yamashina said: "He can be very proud of his numerous achievements, at the factory and the track, which included implementing the Toyota way in Formula One, where we have achieved significant progress in areas such as pit stops."

Indeed: just that morning F1's paddock paper, the Red Bulletin, announced its 2008 award for the best pit crew had gone to Toyota, which was a model of efficiency. Chapter four should see a continuation of that devastating efficiency delivered with unflappable style.