Finnish media point out that a new Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 is running for the first time on the stages around the team’s headquarters in Jyväskylä. Secrecy and silence prevail within Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Toyota Gazoo Racing has never hidden its intention to develop a new rally car based on the Toyota GR Yaris that serves as the basis for a ‘racing-client’ program, always below its current hybrid Toyota GR Yaris Rally1. The brand expressed this already at the beginning of the year, although it showed serious doubts about the direction of its expansion in the WRC. The two options on the table, the technical categories ‘Rally2’ and ‘Rally3’.
Since then, silence on the matter has prevailed within the Toyota Gazoo Racing project in the WRC, but the latest rumors suggest that the firm has not only decided to bet on the ‘Rally2’ category, but would already have the first test mule in the sections. Toyota Gazoo Racing’s future ‘customer-racing’ program will be based in the future Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, a model that would have started its test phase.
Toyota would be rolling with a test mule of the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 in the Finnish stages
With the secrecy with which Toyota has moved it is logical that there is no photo of the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 that confirms this information, but the latest information and/or rumors suggest that the new ‘Rally2’ of the Japanese brand is already being evaluated in the Finnish stages that surround the new team headquarters in Jyväskylä. The good rattan on which the Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 has been built allow the brand to diversify efforts.
In this sense, the Finnish medium ‘Rallit’ has indicated that Toyota would be rolling for a few days with a test mule of this Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 in the same sections that already saw the birth and growth of the hybrid ‘Rally1’ who has been World Champion at the hands of Kalle Rovanperä and who promises to be the protagonist if nothing changes from the triplet that will achieve the mark in the 2022 WRC.
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shadow work
In these times, keeping the Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 project a secret seems like quite a feat, since leaks are usually the order of the day. All in all, it seems much more extraordinary that the GR Yaris Rally2 has completed its first test kilometers, if it is true, without any prying eye having been able to catch its figure.
This work in the shadows and in silence of the squad led by Jari-Matti Latvala is worthy of praise, especially considering the history of Toyota. In a ‘Rally2’ category in which somehow Skoda, M-Sport and Hyundai rule, the arrival of Toyota promises to alter the ‘status quo’ and not only in terms of performance, but also in sales.
study of rivals
Knowing the enormous existing competition and according to the same sources, Toyota Gazoo Racing would have acquired through different intermediaries a unit of each of the ‘Rally2’ vehicles that are currently homologated to be able to study the strengths and weaknesses of each of them and shape a Toyota GR Yaris Rally2 ready to beat them all.
The ambition that drives Toyota Gazoo Racing in its project in the WRC is really great, especially since it works as a ‘delegation’ of the brand and works from Finland, the team wants to win in self-sufficiency and start generating income with a ‘races-customer’ program with this Toyota GR Yaris Rally2, thus copying the business model of M-Sport and Hyundaitheir direct rivals in the World Cup.
Font: Rallit.fi
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Photos: Red Bull Content Pool