Toyota as an F1 team chose not to follow received opinion from the word go. They set up their base in Cologne, of all places, they took on the monumental task of building both chassis and engine and they spent a year testing instead of racing, opting to pay an $11 million fine for the privilege. The fact that their results since then have been, um, disappointing lends weight to the argument that, initially at least, they got it horribly wrong.

The team's test drivers during that development year were Mika Salo and Allan McNish, who were retained for the first year of racing but dropped at the end of the season, in a move that was probably another thing they got wrong and certainly won them no friends in this corner of the world, I can tell you.

The list of drivers they've since employed makes for dull reading: Cristiano da Matta, Olivier Panis, Ricardo Zonta, Ralf Schumacher, Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli, for whom we must admit to having a bit of a soft spot. Schumacher, in particular, is another thing the team got wrong, not least for deciding to pay him an astronomical retainer, despite all evidence that he really wasn't very good at all.

One thing the team did get right was to bring in Mike Gascoyne early in 2004 to lick their technical department into shape. On the other hand, their decision to drop him a couple of years later, just when his efforts were starting to bear fruit, baffled many of the more clear-thinking observers in the paddock.

There's also the tiny matter of an industrial espionage case brought against the team by Ferrari in 2004, after several people had commented on the striking similarity between Toyota's TF104 and the previous year's Ferrari. The case against Toyota seemed overwhelming but the FIA chose not to act, choosing instead to save their ire for the less clear-cut McLaren case in 2007.

Famously one of the best-funded teams on the grid, Toyota have yet to demonstrate that it is money well spent, not least to the top brass in Japan, who periodically issue deadlines to whoever the team principal happens to be that week. The team is still in F1 but never looks as if it will be in the long term.

Would anyone actually miss them though?

The younger and uglier brother of Michael, with none of his sibling's redeeming character traits. On his day, with a car set up to his taste, he could almost convince you it was his brother driving. The fact that he only had six of those days in 11 years of F1 wasn't enough to stop Toyota making the charmless German Formula One's second-highest paid driver during his three years with them, the team apparently swallowing Ralf's laughable assertion that he was among the top three drivers in Formula One.

His tenure in one of the most glamorous and envied jobs on the planet was marked by the constant impression that he'd much rather be doing something else and now, thank the deity of your choice, he is.