Cristiano da Matta tackles Mike Gascoyne
Toyota driver in 2003 and 2004, Cristiano da Matta strongly criticized Mike Gascoyne, the current technical director of Caterham, in an interview on the Brazilian website Totalrace. He had worked with him within the Japanese team. According to the Brazilian driver, the British engineer is largely overrated.
The former Toyota driver, Cristiano da Matta, recently reflected on his time in Formula 1, and he is not kind to the current Caterham engineer, Mike Gascoyne, whom he worked with at the Japanese team between 2003 and 2004.
Crowned with unrivaled domination in IndyCar, the Brazilian driver arrived at Toyota with a winner’s reputation. While the first season of their collaboration in 2003 was rather promising, the following year was a major disappointment for both parties. So much so that da Matta was ousted mid-season.
The story goes that Toyota dismissed da Matta not due to a lack of performance, but because he had verbally criticized the path taken by the team’s technical management, then led by Mike Gascoyne.
The British engineer had the confidence of Toyota, but too many differences of opinion also led to a separation between the two parties at the dawn of the 2006 season. Da Matta also confirms during an interview with the Brazilian website Totalrace that Gascoyne’s work was probably overestimated: « I don’t know if I should say it, but in the end, the big problem was Mike Gascoyne. He joined the team, earned a large sum of money, and everything new he brought made us even worse, not better. »
The Brazilian driver who had been ousted for highlighting these shortcomings finally had the late satisfaction of knowing he was right: In 2005, when I returned to IndyCar, I was in Long Beach and saw a guy with a Toyota shirt. I wondered who he was. He came up to me and said, “Mr. da Matta, I am here on behalf of Toyota. The things you said in the past were true.” I replied that I was happy to hear that, even if it was a bit late, but I appreciated the respect he had for my work.
In 2006, da Matta had a severe accident in IndyCar when his car hit a deer that had wandered onto the Elkhart Lake track. After several weeks in a coma, the Brazilian driver recovered and returned to racing in Grand Am in 2008 and then in ALMS.
