The technical director of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Tom Fowler, admits that the team will fit a more powerful engine to the GR Yaris Rally1 for the next three events with the intention of catching up the fast Hyundai i20N Rally1 in these fast rallies.
Fowler stated to DirtFish.com one month ago that Toyota had focused only on the reliability side of their new car instead of the performance and this is proved due to the 1-2-3-4 top finish in Kenya two weeks ago.
The Japanese team increased its advantage over the second Hyundai at 62 points on manufacturers' championship at the end of Safari Rally while before the start of that event their gap was at 39 points.
"You know we worked a lot of reliability in the first half?", Fowler said.
"Well, we know reliability on its own is not going to cut it in Estonia, Finland and Ypres.
"Those are three rallies in a row which are really just about engine grunt, a pedal to the metal situation.
"We all know these rallies, it comes down to seconds here and there.
"We have put a performance package together ready for Estonia, which consists of a mid-season engine upgrade as normal.
"This is what we’ve done in time for the mid-season fast rallies for the last six years.”
"I think broadly speaking it’s power.
"Every year we say we’ve gone torque, power, torque, power, torque, power.
"For the moment we’ve been looking for more power for the simple reason that the electric motor has got torque, so why would you put more of that at this point?
"So yeah, a more powerful engine is coming.
"We’ve got a new rear wing.
"We’ve collected a lot of data on these cars, and we’ve seen Hyundai’s engine is the strongest right now.
"If the championship was run in a straight line, you want a Hyundai.
"Put some corners in and you want a Toyota.
"The work that we’ve done on these jokers has been as a reaction to what we’ve seen more from Hyundai than some of the others.
"There are, of course, another couple of hurdles in the next few rallies – one of those is Ott at home in Estonia and Neuville at home in Belgium.
"They will be strong – not least because there’s less corners on those rallies!".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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