Only in fire does iron become iron, and this principle is true not only for nail manufacturers.
If you build cars, throw them into the fire of crazy motorsport battles! And in the end you will get a result that will please car owners around the world.
In accordance with this recipe, the name Gazoo Racing was born from the fire in which the legendary reliability and excellent handling of Toyota production cars was melted.
It is now represented in the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship, the World Road Rally Championship and the European Touring Car Championship. And in Toyota showrooms, bright production models with GR Sport badges shine.
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How is it all connected and where did it all come from? Let’s find out.
First of all, we note that the name Gazoo Racing did not come from a blank slate: the Toyota sports division has accumulated experience and knowledge gained as a result of many years of competition of Toyota cars in various motorsports discipline, mainly in rallies.
Rallying is Toyota’s special passion. Gazoo Racing is said to have become Toyota’s professional sports division thanks to a meeting between then-CEO Akio Toyoda and four-time world rally champion Finn Tommi Mäkinen. An ardent fan of powerful high-speed sports cars, Toyoda decides to improve his driving skills again and invites Tommy to be his personal instructor.
But in the end, Mäkinen passed on more serious knowledge to Toyoda than the technique of negotiating high-speed rally turns and high gravel jumps. As Akio Toyoda noted, Mäkinen not only helped him improve his high-speed driving skills, but also changed his worldview.
The Finn emphasized the relationship between vehicle development and participation in rally competition. After all, rallies are held on roads with different surfaces – these are the roads on which most Toyota production vehicles move around the world.
Mäkinen says it is impossible to create the perfect car without participating in rallies. In his opinion, “this is the path that creates the car.” Wise Akio Toyoda appreciated the depth of these words and decided to take the factory team directly to the World Rally Championship in 2017! He invited Tommi Mäkinen to lead the ambitious project.
But this debut of Toyota in world motorsport took place later. First, Toyota cars tried their hand at simpler competitions.
It happened in the second half of the last century, or rather in 1972. Then the Swedish driver Uwe Andersson took part in the rally of the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) in Great Britain in a Toyota Celica.
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The Toyota Celica under his control finished ninth. Not the most stellar result, it seems, but it’s truly inspiring. First, Toyota proved its legendary reliability. Second, he immediately finished in the top ten. And thirdly, and this is the main thing, Andersson managed to get ahead of his main rivals – the Nissan team, which started with the stellar Datsun 240Z for that time!
Toyota was also amazed by this success and therefore spared no support for its factory team. But in order to restore and modify the cars for racing, they have to be sent to Japan. Therefore, to save time and money, Andersson, with the support of Toyota, created the Andersson Motorsport team in 1973. And in the same year, a Toyota Corolla with Walter Bates at the wheel won its first rally race – Press On Independent in the USA!
In February 1975, Andersson Motorsport officially became Toyota Team Europe, and just six months later, driver Hannu Mikkola, driving a Toyota Corolla, won the 1000 Lakes Rally in his native Finland.
In the early eighties, the TTE headquarters moved to Cologne, Germany, which significantly saved money on developing new solutions and maintaining combat vehicles. Here was born the legendary Celica Twincam Turbo – the first Toyota of Group B. And in 1984, the first world rally champion, Swede Bjorn Waldegard, won one of the most prestigious and difficult championship races – the African Safari Rally – with this car. And that was the first of three straight wins in Kenya.
Four years later, Toyota introduced the all-wheel drive Toyota Celica GT Four, which became a true rally legend. This model, in ST165, ST185 and ST205 versions, won 29 World Championship races, two manufacturers’ titles and four drivers’ championship crowns.
It is no exaggeration to say that the Toyota Celica GT Four changed the rally world. Spaniard Carlos Sainz made his World Championship debut here in 1989. This season resulted in three podiums in seven races and a final silver in the manufacturers’ standings! And the next season, Sainz became the first world champion to owe his title to a Toyota car. In the Celica GT Four he won four races, finished on the podium five times and took the team’s second manufacturer team silver.
Along with the rally program, Toyota began working on a prototype for endurance racing. First of all, the Japanese are naturally interested in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And the first serious result in this race was in 1993 the fourth place of the Eddie Irvine/Toshio Suzuki/Masanori Sekiya crew, which started with the Toyota TS010 built the previous year.
In 1998, Toyota presented the first class GT-1 car under the symbol TS020. This is a very fast car! The crew of British pilot Martin Brundle showed the second fastest qualifying time, missing the pole position by only seven thousandths of a second. The team was reasonably expected to win the main race of the season, but several technical problems dashed their dream victory, which was so close. Interestingly, Toyota, in accordance with homologation requirements, released two road copies of its GT-1, which are now kept in museum collections.
The next prototype for the World Endurance Championship is the Toyota TS030, prepared for the 2012 season. At the end of the year, the cars took second and fourth place.
We can talk endlessly about the successes of Toyota cars in various racing series, but where and when did the name Gazoo Racing come from? After all, all the amazing motorsport stories described above took place in divisions called Toyota Team Europe and Toyota Motorsport GmbH.
And the new name appeared by accident, and thanks to the same Akio Toyoda.
In 2007, an amateur racing team from Japan entered the famous Nürburgring 24 Hours touring car race. The team consists of students who have mastered the professions of test drivers and mechanics at Toyota. The “playing coaches” in it were the company’s test driver Hiromu Naruse, who started under the pseudonym Cap, and the future CEO of Toyota Akio Toyoda, who received the pseudonym Morizo. By the way, he learned the basics of high-speed driving under Naruse’s control.
It was planned that this amateur factory team would start under the name Works Toyota Racing, but at the last moment it was decided to change the name. The founders seemed a little… embarrassed. The fact is that the team’s fighting vehicles are old Toyota Altezza and BMW has been discontinued. In addition, the budget is minimal and the chances of success are very doubtful.
After some deliberation, it was decided to name the team Team Gazoo – after the name of the portal created with the financial support of Toyota. Among other things, he covers the work of the company’s amateur racing project. And the name stuck!
In 2009, Toyoda took over the company created by his grandfather. This year marks the beginning of the development of the Gazoo project. In addition to the Gazoo Racing racing team, which continued to compete in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring in specially prepared Lexus LF-A and Toyota GT-86, regular public motorsport events were organized. The Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival, for example, is held annually in November.
Following this, all factory racing teams began renaming themselves Gazoo. The first were the national racing teams Toyota Racing and Lexus Racing, which became Toyota Gazoo Racing and Lexus Gazoo Racing.
In 2017, in addition to the factory team that Akio Toyoda entered in the World Rally Championship, the Gazoo Racing Company, directly involved in the transfer of racing DNA to regular Toyota road cars, emerged from the division that developed sports cars .
This is how the GR, GR Sport and GRMN nameplates appeared on the production cars – the most powerful sports equipment for Toyotas on the road. The last abbreviation stands for Gazoo Racing, mentioned by the Meister of the Nürburgring. That is, the cars of Gazoo Racing aimed at the champions of the Nürburgring.
The results of Toyota’s sports division are truly impressive. Since 2017, the Gazoo Racing WRT team, racing specially prepared Toyota Yaris, has won five drivers’ championships and four manufacturers’ titles. In endurance racing, five team championships, four individual titles and five consecutive victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. And the only winner of the World Rally Raid Championship was Nasser Al-Attiyah, who started in a Toyota Hilux pickup truck.
However, you don’t have to be a great car athlete to personally participate in the legendary Gazoo Racing. Today, millions of Toyota customers around the world, including in Ukraine, can do this.
Ukrainian fans of the Japanese brand have access to several models in the GR Sport configuration. These are Toyota Corolla, C-HR, RAV4, Hilux and, of course, Land Cruiser 300.
Each GR Sport is equipped with exclusive features and premium design elements such as alloy wheels, a unique grille and stylish exterior colors such as Dynamic Gray or Ash Grey. Inside the GR Sport, you’ll find a perforated leather steering wheel with red stitching and top-class trim materials. The technical side of the issue is not overlooked: cars with the GR Sport badge can differ not only in their exclusive suspension, but also in the presence of a number of unique technical solutions. For example, only in the GR Sport configuration does the Toyota Land Cruiser 300 receive the e-KDSS active stabilizer system and all differential locks.
More details about the features of the luxury Toyota SUV in the GR Sport configuration can be found here.
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Source: korrespondent
I am an experienced author and journalist with a passion for lifestyle journalism. I currently work for Buna Times, one of the leading news websites in the world. I specialize in writing stories about health, wellness, fashion, beauty, interior design, and more. My articles have been featured on major publications such as The Guardian and The Huffington Post.