The automaker has been a Formula One competitor since 2002, but failed to win a single race. It finished fifth in this year’s championship, placing sixth and seventh in the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi last Sunday. Toyota’s best result in the series came in 2005, when it finished fourth in the constructor standings.

Image Tadashi Yamashina, the chairman of Toyota Motorsport, cried at a news conference in Tokyo on Wednesday when the team announced its withdrawal from Formula One. Credit... Issei Kato/Reuters

Coincidentally, Brawn GP  which took over the old Honda team  won the Formula One championship this year, which the team had failed to achieve under Honda.

With Toyota’s exit, there will be no Japanese constructor on the Formula One grid in 2010, throwing the popularity of the sport in the world’s second-largest economy into question.

Toyota had invested time and money into the sport, acquiring the Fuji International Speedway in 2000 and holding the Formula One Japanese Grand Prix in 2007-8. But after organizational mishaps and poor ticket sales, the race returned in 2009 to the Suzuka Circuit, owned by a Honda subsidiary.

Tadashi Yamashina, senior managing director and head of Toyota’s motor racing unit, said through tears that he was sorry for Toyota’s racers, especially the team’s Japanese reserve driver, Kamui Kobayashi. Toyota’s main drivers for the 2009 season were Jarno Trulli of Italy and Timo Glock of Germany.

“The drivers have grown, together with the team,” he said, trailing off as his eyes welled with tears. He spent the rest of the news conference heaving and sighing and dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.

Alongside Yamanashi, Toyoda, a member of the company’s founding family who took over in June, presented himself as a realist who was not afraid of making tough decisions. “I have always been one of motor sport’s most ardent supporters,” he said. “But since becoming president, my responsibilities have changed. I felt that we needed to shift the company’s resources. Eco-friendly cars are our top priority.”