As true as the saying ‘calm seas never make a good sailor’ goes, Toyota Gazoo Racing will be hoping January’s Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia acts as a springboard in its efforts to return to the top of the rally raid world.
Although the brand won the World Rally-Raid Championship (W2RC) manufacturers’ title for the third consecutive year and the Dakar in 2023 with Nasser Al-Attiyah, it has seen fresh competition arrive on the scene courtesy of Dacia and M-Sport as well as a resurgent X-raid Mini JCW operation.
Both Dacia and M-Sport are sporting brand-new cars, while the Mini is an enhanced 3.0-litre petrol variation of the JCW Rally. Conversely at TGR, which operates the W2RC efforts of Lucas Moraes and Seth Quintero, the Hilux DKR with which it became one of the Dakar benchmarks is an older car nearing the end of its development cycle.
Changes on the car, and also behind the scenes too. Long-term team principal Glyn Hall has retired and sold his Hallsport business to former customer Shameer Variawa, whose son Saood will contest his second Dakar as part of the South African arm of the team.
Variawa’s SVM team now controls operations, while Jean-Marc Fortin’s Overdrive Racing continues to take charge of the European distribution of Hiluxes.
Overseeing the W2RC project is Toyota Motor Europe, who have brought in Bart Eelen as head of motorsport activities, while Andrea Carlucci becomes team principal, effectively taking over from Hall.
Confused? You’re not the only one, rest assured.
Quintero and Moraes continue as drivers for TGR's official W2RC entry
“It’s more complicated than it needs to be, but the most important thing is that we all know what jobs we are doing,” confesses Eelen to DirtFish.
“The cars are still being produced by SVR, which used to be Glyn’s company, so they are still the manufacturers of the car, and then in terms of practical running of the cars we are still relying on Overdrive Racing in Belgium.
“That’s the motorsport part of the deal, and next to that, because the project is managed from within Toyota Motor Europe by the team principal Andrea, who is basically my boss, and vice president for marketing and product planning.
“And then three months ago, myself and a colleague were appointed to take care of the day-to-day running of the business which we combine with other duties.”
The 52-year-old Eelen from Ghent in Belgium has long been associated with Toyota and is tasked with keeping the ship sailing in the right direction.
The brand has been at the forefront of the rally-raid scene for many years now and, despite what is believed to be an aging car versus those around it, it has had a stronghold on both the manufacturers’ and drivers’ titles in recent years.
Hilux has been the car to beat in early seasons of W2RC
While much of that success can be put down to the generational talent of Al-Attiyah, Eelen is sure that the ‘DNA of the team’ is one where success and innovation go very much hand in hand.
“The reason for Gazoo Racing existing is to make sure that we can utilize motorsports as a testing bed for new technologies and a development ground for people,” Eelen says.
“In this discipline, to be honest it hasn’t been something we have focused on that much, until now, because of the way the team has been set up.
“My role is to bring this discipline closer to Toyota the brand and to find more synergies between the R&D teams that are involved in developing the road cars in Europe and in Japan, and the racing team taking learnings from the road cars.
“That’s one element, the second element is that W2RC is an exciting category and I think now especially with the five races and the competition, it’s more important than ever that we bring this interest and excitement to the fans, because we didn’t do that fully in the past.”
With this in mind, Toyota’s involvement in the Dakar Rally and wider W2RC appears to be developing into a far more sophisticated factory-run program, while still making the most of the extensive wealth of experience and know-how from the affiliate Overdrive and SVM outfits.
With the rise of the W2RC to include official factory operations from Dacia [Renault], Ford and Mini, Toyota now knows it needs to match that level of commitment if it is to fight for future Dakar victories.
And Eelen wants that level of competition throughout the year in the full W2RC season, as well.
Although Toyota has largely swept the floor in the W2RC – and FIA World Cup for Cross-Country Rallies prior to the inception of the world championship – consistent competition simply hasn’t been there outside of the Dakar and Rallye du Maroc.
Eelen wants a full-season battle with rival manufacturers
Winning the title against its closest factory rivals over a full campaign, Eelen wagers, would give not only the brands but the world championship greater recognition.
“From a purely sporting point of view, I think it is vital that everyone takes part in all of the races of the championship,” Eelen stresses. “And from Toyota’s perspective, it is a great opportunity for us to fight against the rest, and to keep our fans engaged.
“It’s super risky, in my opinion, to have basically only one race that you focus on, it’s so easy for something to go wrong. Dakar will always be the main event, just like Le Mans in the World Endurance Championship, but to have a better chance to compete and show your strength, that is a great thing.
“We also need to create a team feeling and mood throughout the year, and it is hard to do that just for one event or two events, also from a development point of view.”
It’s safe to say that Toyota is sticking around for the foreseeable future and, as with their circuit racing counterparts in WEC, the impending multi-faceted challenge from the newcomers may ultimately be just what they, and rally-raid, needs.
