Toyota’s brand-new GR Corolla Rally RC2 failed to finish its maiden event, but that’s of no concern to the World Rally Championship’s leading manufacturer.
World Rally-Raid driver Seth Quintero and co-driver Topi Luhtinen have been entrusted with rallying the Corolla in the 2026 American Rally Association National Championship, beginning with last weekend’s Rally in the 100 Acre Wood.
Despite his extensive rally-raid experience as part of Toyota’s works squad, 100 Acre Wood was just Quintero’s second-ever stage rally, and he settled into an early seventh place overall after the first day – under half a minute of the rally lead.
The 23-year-old started the second day with a top-five stage time, but SS7 Loup Southern 5600 – 1 would prove his last competitively as the Corolla’s air intake filled with water through a watersplash.
Quintero parked the car on the stage, only for it to be hit by rival Vivian Campell’s Mitsubishi. But the Toyota mechanics repaired the Corolla and sent Quintero out to complete the final loop of the rally in order to get more mileage.
Quintero had to retire from the event, but Toyota has entered ARA with a 'yee ha' attitude
Quintero told DirtFish: “We went through the watersplash and water went through the bottom of the bumper and hit the intake and blew the intake off. When we pulled over there was water in the intake.
“We’re here to test, it’s our first one, it’s the first one for the car, so it wasn’t worth risking having water in the motor or anything so we just parked it and I guess parking it was the worst decision because then we got smoked! But it was a lot of fun to get back in the car and warm up again.
“There was no pressure to begin with which was kind of the weird part,” he added. “There’s a couple of finetuning things to do and we’re gonna come back swinging hard.
“I gained as much knowledge as I could, got to get a night stage in and am starting to get faster so I’m looking forward to the next one – it should be a lot of fun.”
Toyota technical director Tom Fowler wasn’t in Missouri, but paid close attention to how his latest creation fared on its debut.
“It was great to see the GR Corolla RC2 car out there competing on its debut in Missouri,” Fowler told DirtFish.
“As we’ve discussed previously, this is a customer-focused car which is, essentially, built from the parts catalogue for the GR Yaris Rally2. There are areas where we will want to look more closely – for example the damage sustained to the front of the car in the watersplash – and we’ve already started working on improvements from there.
“It’s important to note this isn’t a car where we’re going into America in a ‘yee-haa’ fashion looking to show everyone what we can do. This is about developing a car for customers in a cost-effective fashion.
“It’s maybe a hard learning point to go out of the first rally in this way, but right now this is about the process of further developing the car more than it is about the result.”
The car’s next event will be the Olympus Rally presented by DirtFish on April 17-19.
