Toyota’s 2027 World Rally Championship challenger caught the eyes of the watching world in Portugal last week. On Monday we delivered news of what the team and the car was doing – but the key question of pace remained unanswered.
Until now.
The Japanese manufacturer has back-to-backed its 2027 car against its own GR Yaris Rally2 to give a real-time understanding of where the competition is going to be next year. This offers genuine insight for Toyota.
It’s rare that a new regulation set offers the opportunity for an authentic benchmark, but the FIA’s decision to deliver parity between Rally1 and Rally2 makes this the reality for next year.
So where is the new car against the GR Yaris Rally2 which will vault from the second to the top tier of world rallying next season?
“It’s hard to beat our Rally2 car at the moment,” Toyota’s technical director Tom Fowler told DirtFish. “But that’s not surprising: the engine is the same, the weight is the same and the 2027 car is brand-new. The GR Yaris Rally2 has had three years’ development so far.
Toyota is expected to be the only manufacturer with both a Rally1 and Rally2 car in 2027
“We know as a manufacturer, you’re always learning – we see over a five-year homologation cycle, if you were to race the car of year one against the car of year five, there’d be no competition. There are massive steps which go on through every homologation over time.
“Right now, the two cars are at slightly different points in their life, but that’s our target of this year: to pull those cars towards each other and make the best of both of those regulations. Because, at the end of the year, what we need is a Rally2 car performing at the top of the Rally2 category and the ’27 car performing on the same level – so no matter which car someone buys next year, they’re still competitive in WRC.
“Obviously, this is not a straightforward situation, but I would say this is one of the challenges of the ’27 regulations and we’re, let’s say, willing to work around it.”
Running a current WRC program while working remotely on Toyota’s American ARA National Championship and developing an all-new car for next year’s World Rally Championship is stretching the team in Jyväskylä.
Fowler continued: “I’m pretty sure that everybody’s expecting that we’re the ones doing the new car. And a new [car] is always faster, right? Therefore, everything’s done and dusted and easy… but when I look at our job list of what we have to achieve before Monte Carlo with the 2027 car, it would be much easier just to rock up there with a Rally2 car that we already did.”
Toyota won’t be doing that. Toyota’s vision is longer-term and goes beyond what’s being talked of as a transition year before more constructors and manufacturers arriving with 2027-specification cars in 2028.
As mentioned, that does throw up a peculiarity for next year. For those with an eye for history, it’s 1987 all over again – when Group B ended in favor of Group A; a category which had always been running as the second tier.
Will the new car be quicker than the old one? Right now, it doesn't seem so, but the plan is to get them level
“This hasn’t happened for a long, long time,” said Fowler. “You’re disassociating the point of homologation with the eligibility of the vehicles in the event. For next year, you can arrive with an older [Rally2] car where previously everyone’s homologation for the top category were all aligned to the same year.
“It means the door is much more open to use an older vehicle with a higher level of development against a newer vehicle which has a slightly different regulation and all of this brings massive unknowns – which will hopefully result in good competition and plenty of excitement. But ultimately… with a Toyota winning!”
