Cars & Autos | Monday 26 August, 2019 12:27 am |

Toyota GAZOO Racing (GR) World Rally Team (WRT) reached a new milestone recently with the Toyota Yaris WRC winning the fastest event on the FIA World Rally Championship calendar, Rally Finland, for the third year in a row. Ott Tänak, in the No. 8 Toyota Yaris WRC, repeated his victory from one year ago to increase his championship lead, while Jari-Matti Latvala, driving the No. 10 Toyota Yaris WRC, finished third on his home event. With these achievements, the Finland-based GR WRT maintained its record of getting two cars onto the podium on the event every year since its debut in 2017.

Over the years, Toyota has been participating in many different forms of motorsports, ‎including Formula One, the World Endurance Championship, and the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. Toyota’s participation in these events was overseen by separate ‎entities within the company until April 2015, when Toyota established GR, ‎to consolidate all of its motorsports activities under one in-house brand. Representing ‎Toyota’s belief that ‘the roads build the people, and the people build the cars,’ GR highlights the role of motorsports as a fundamental pillar of Toyota’s commitment to ‎making ‘ever-better’ cars. Harnessing years of experience gained under the extreme ‎conditions of various motorsports events, GR aims to forge new ‎technologies and solutions that bring the freedom, adventure, and joy of driving to everyone.

The next rally, Rallye Deutschland, is effectively three rallies in one. Taking place on German asphalt, the event features twisting roads through Moselle vineyards, the notoriously tough Baumholder military area, and fast country lanes of Saarland. The differing characteristics of these roads and the often-changeable weather conditions can make car set-up and tire choice difficult.