The technical director of Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT, Tom Fowler, says that his team will bring the first upgrade to the GR Yaris Rally1 on the third or the fourth rally of 2024 and reveals that there is only one team behind the development of the Rally1 and the Rally2 car.
The Japanese team is currently developing the brand-new GR Yaris Rally2 car which is set to make its first appearance in WRC2 class at Rally Monte Carlo in two months from now. In addition to that, they are planning to produce at least four Rally2 cars by the end of this year and it is very likely to give the opportunity to two Japanese drivers to drive this car next season. However, Toyota has already introduced a power unit upgrade to Yaris Rally1 car at Rally Estonia four months ago while the team did not bring an aero upgrade as they planned for Rally Mexico. Last but not least, their rival team, Hyundai Motorsport, is trying to build a more competitive car ahead of 2024 by solving the reliability issues, such as making the propshaft more durable.
"We’ve already got options, one is selected", Fowler said.
"We won’t bring it in the beginning of the year, but most likely in the third or fourth rally, we aim to come with the first upgrade.
"We’re quite happy with our situation for Monte Carlo.
"It’s a tricky rally, so we’d rather keep the status quo and concentrate on getting the right tires.
"But after that, we have an upgrade ready, which should be nice.
"We have been testing it for quite some time.
"Honestly speaking I think I’m really happy at the moment with how our design team is working.
"Because they are responsible for the Rally2 car as well, it’s the same guys.
"We don’t have two teams.
"It’s all the same people working in a matrix-type environment where they’re picking up jobs from the two cars, which we decided to do to keep the learning between the projects on as high a level as possible.
"And actually, the update which we are bringing has come about as a result of some things that we learned from R&D for Rally2.
"So actually a really nice piece of work that’s been done by the design team in Rally2 which was transferable to Rally1.
"In that sense, the two projects are going well together at the moment".
Source: DirtFish.com
Photo Credits: Toyota
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