Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe GmbH (TGR-E),
formerly Andersson Motorsport GmbH and Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), is a fully-owned and controlled entity of
Toyota Motor Corporation
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
, based in
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, which provides
motorsport and automotive services to fellow Toyota companies and to outside clients, employing around 350 people in a 30,000 m
2 factory.
As of the 2020 season, TGR-E currently operates Toyota's FIA
World Endurance Championship (WEC) factory team under the name Toyota Gazoo Racing, and develops and manufactures the engine for
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT is a World Rally Championship (WRC) team based in Finland that serves as Toyota's official factory team. Its team principal is former WRC driver Jari-Matti Latvala. The team made its début during the 2017 season, where ...
.
TGR-E's WEC team is not to be confused with the
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
-based
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
team, which is not operated by TGR-E.
Andersson Motorsport GmbH was responsible for Toyota's
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
cars starting from the 1970s until the 1990s. In addition, since 1994, TMG has developed a tuning business for Toyota road cars, offering complete vehicle service, tuning and sports accessories. However TMG is not to be confused with TRD (
Toyota Racing Development
Toyota Racing Development (also known by its abbreviation TRD) is the in-house tuning shop for all Toyota, Lexus and formerly Scion cars. ''TRD'' is responsible both for improving street cars for more performance and supporting Toyota's racing ...
) in the United States. As they are a separate entity and another department owned and controlled by Toyota Motor Corporation Japan which is taking care of the company's involvement in American motorsports, most popular one being
NASCAR
The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...
. TRD are also well known for designing and developing tuning & high-performance autoparts for a variety of Toyota-Lexus vehicles including road cars, sportscars and off-roading pickup trucks and SUV's. In 1999 the company stopped participating in rallying, in order to prepare for a switch to
Formula One
Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...
(F1) in . From 2002 to 2009, TMG operated its company's Formula One team named
Panasonic Toyota Racing
formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb s ...
, starting 139 Grands Prix. In that time, they finished on the podium 13 times, earned three pole positions and scored a total of 278.5 points. TMG also provided their Toyota F1 engines to the
Jordan Formula One Team in 2005, which was then sold out and was renamed as
Midland F1 Racing
Midland F1 Racing (also known as MF1 Racing, or simply "Midland") was a Formula One constructor and racing team which competed in the 2006 Formula One season with drivers Christijan Albers and Tiago Monteiro. The team was created by the renami ...
in 2006, but continued using Toyota F1 engines until their withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2006,
Williams Formula One Team were also TMG's customers for their Toyota F1 engines from 2007 to 2009. On 4 November 2009, Toyota announced their withdrawal from F1.
In the meantime, it entered sports car racing and the
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...
: in
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
and
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
, finishing 2nd in 1999 with their
Toyota GT-One. TMG has moved back into sports car racing as an exclusive engine supplier from 2011 onwards to
Lola Cars
Lola Cars International Ltd. was a British race car engineering company in operation from 1958 to 2012. The company was founded by Eric Broadley in Bromley, England (then in Kent, now part of Greater London), before moving to new premises in Slo ...
, powering
Rebellion Racing
Rebellion Racing is a Swiss racing team that competes in endurance racing. The team competed in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season and won the LMP1 teams' title in the 2011 Le Mans Series season. The team started as an association ...
. In 2012 TMG fully returned to sports car competition with the
Toyota TS030 Hybrid
The Toyota TS030 Hybrid is a Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) sports car built by Toyota Motorsport GmbH and used by the manufacturer in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 and 2013. It was Toyota's first all new prototype since the GT-One ...
.
In addition to its motorsport activities, Toyota Motorsport also undertakes production vehicle analysis and development on behalf of Toyota, providing "highly skilled and rapidly reacting engineering" services. A range of modified Toyota-Lexus road cars is also available from the
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
factory.
Rally history
![Toyota Monte-Carlo 1999](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Toyota_Monte-Carlo_1999.jpg)
Toyota Team Europe (TTE) was started in London in 1972 when Toyota representatives and
Ove Andersson
Ove Andersson (3 January 1938 – 11 June 2008), nicknamed ''Påven'' ("the Pope"), was a Swedish rally driver and the first head of Toyota's F1 programme.
Early life
Andersson was born in Uppsala and grew up on a remote farm. His father bough ...
, who won the
Monte Carlo Rally in 1971, decided that he should drive a
Toyota Celica
The is an automobile produced by Toyota from 1970 until 2006. The Celica name derives from the Latin word '' coelica'' meaning 'heavenly' or 'celestial'. In Japan, the Celica was exclusive to the '' Toyota Corolla Store'' dealer chain.
Pro ...
in the
RAC Rally
Wales Rally GB was the most recent iteration of the United Kingdom's premier international motor rally, which ran under various names since the first event held in 1932. It was consistently a round of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC) calen ...
in the autumn of that year. Andersson came ninth, beating other Japanese top teams who mostly worked with the
Datsun 240Z
The Nissan S30 (sold in Japan as the Nissan Fairlady Z and in other markets as the Datsun 240Z, then later as the 260Z and 280Z) is the first generation of Z GT 3-door two-seat coupés, produced by Nissan Motors, Ltd. of Japan from 1969 until ...
.
The Toyota Celica had to travel from Japan to the European events all the time, which was not good for the car, so Andersson set up a workshop of his own,
Andersson Motorsport, which became Toyota's first European team. It was founded in 1973 with its workshop in Uppsala, Sweden. Shortly thereafter it moved to Brussels, Belgium. It ran
Corollas and Celicas from this location, with some help from Japan for major events.
TTE began in February 1975. In August of that year,
Hannu Mikkola
Hannu Olavi Mikkola (24 May 1942 − 25 February 2021) was a Finnish champion world rally driver. He was a seven-time winner of the 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland and won the RAC Rally in Great Britain four times.
Career
Mikkola's rally career ...
won TTE's first rally, the
1000 Lakes Rally
Rally Finland (formerly known as the Neste Rally Finland, Neste Oil Rally Finland, 1000 Lakes Rally and Rally of the Thousand Lakes; fi, Suomen ralli, sv, Finska rallyt) is a rally competition in the Finnish Lakeland in Central Finland. The ra ...
in a Corolla 1600, where the competition used 2.0 L engines.
In 1979 TTE moved 11 of the 20 employees from Brussels to Cologne, where the Toyota Allee was created. This was also the first time it used a Celica Turbo, and TTE won the next two Safari Rallies.
In September 1987, TTE moved to a larger premises, in which they still reside. It was also the time they revealed their first
four wheel drive
Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...
car, the
Toyota Celica GT-Four
The Toyota Celica GT-Four is a high performance model of the Celica Liftback that was produced from 1986 to 1999, with a turbocharged '' 3S-GTE'' engine, and full-time AWD. It was created to compete in the World Rally Championship, whose regul ...
, driven by
Juha Kankkunen
Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen (; born 2 April 1959) is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which we ...
and
Kenneth Eriksson
Kenneth Eriksson (born 13 May 1956 in Äppelbo, in the kommun of Vansbro) is a now retired World Rally Championship rally driver. He drove for several manufacturer teams, including the Subaru World Rally Team, Mitsubishi, Hyundai and Škoda. He ...
.
Carlos Sainz won the
1990
File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...
FIA
FIA is the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (English: International Automobile Federation), the world's governing body for all forms of motor sport where four or more wheels are used.
Fia or FIA may also refer to: People
* Fia Backs ...
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
Title for Drivers with ST165. The newer GT-Four, ST185, made its debut at the
1992 Rallye Monte Carlo, culminating in Sainz again winning the title in this year. The ST185 also won the WRC Driver's and
Manufacturer's Titles in
1993
File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peacefu ...
with
Juha Kankkunen
Juha Matti Pellervo Kankkunen (; born 2 April 1959) is a Finnish former rally driver. His factory team career in the World Rally Championship lasted from 1983 to 2002. He won 23 world rallies and four drivers' world championship titles, which we ...
, and in
1994
File:1994 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1994 Winter Olympics are held in Lillehammer, Norway; The Kaiser Permanente building after the 1994 Northridge earthquake; A model of the MS Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea; Nelson ...
with
Didier Auriol
Didier Auriol (born 18 August 1958) is a French former rally driver. Born in Montpellier, and initially an ambulance driver, he competed in the World Rally Championship throughout the 1990s. He became World Rally Champion in 1994, the first driv ...
.
In 1993
Toyota Motor Corporation
is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...
bought TTE which then renamed Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG). At this time, as a fully owned part of Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Motorsport were employing 300 staff from 17 nations.
In
1995
File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...
TTE was banned for 12 months from the
World Rally Championship
The World Rally Championship (abbreviated as WRC) is the highest level of global competition in the motorsport discipline of rallying, owned and governed by the FIA. There are separate championships for drivers, co-drivers, manufacturers and t ...
(WRC) for cheating by designing an illegal air restrictor on the ST205 that included both a bypass mechanism and spring-loaded devices to conceal it from scrutineers.
In the
1996 and
1997
File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...
, despite lack of works team appearance in 1996 due to the ban, TTE supported the Celica ST205 rallied by Italian HF Grifone Team, Toyota Team Sweden, Marlboro Toyota Team Belgium, and Tein Sport in the selected WRC events, before introduced the
Corolla WRC in the 1997 Rally of Finland. When they returned to the WRC for
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
, they did so with a Corolla WRC driven by the crews of Carlos Sainz/
Luis Moya and Didier Auriol/
Denis Giraudet
Denis Giraudet (born 16 December 1955) is a French rally co-driver.
Rally career
Giraudet started his career in 1981. He won his first rally at 1993 Rally Finland alongside four-time world champion Juha Kankkunen. His most successful partners ...
. They finished the season in second overall in both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships.
In
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
, however, the manufacturers championship was taken, the third in TTE's existence.
Sports car racing history
![Toyota GTone](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Toyota_GTone.jpg)
In addition to spearheading Toyota's efforts in the World Rally Championship, the group has also developed and run the
Toyota GT-One and
Toyota TS030 Hybrid
The Toyota TS030 Hybrid is a Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) sports car built by Toyota Motorsport GmbH and used by the manufacturer in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 and 2013. It was Toyota's first all new prototype since the GT-One ...
in
sports car racing
Sports car racing is a form of motorsport road racing which utilises sports cars that have two seats and enclosed wheels. They may be purpose-built prototypes or grand tourers based on road-going models. Broadly speaking, sports car racing is ...
. The GT-One entered the
24 Hours of Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans (french: link=no, 24 Heures du Mans) is an endurance-focused sports car race held annually near the town of Le Mans, France. It is the world's oldest active endurance racing event. Unlike fixed-distance races whose ...
in both
1998
1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''.
Events January
* January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...
and
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...
, and the TS030 Hybrid made its début in
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
.
GT-One
Introduced in time for
Le Mans in 1998, the GT-One first appeared at the official testing days for the race held in May. Three GT-Ones appeared, setting the second, fifth, and tenth best times, easily beating out custom built prototypes which were meant to be the superior class. For the race week itself, all three cars performed admirably in qualifying by continuing their quick pace, qualifying second, seventh, and eight, being beaten only by their GT class competitor, Mercedes-Benz. For the race itself, the No. 28 GT-One suffered from a high speed accident halfway through the race, taking it out of competition. The two other entrants continued to fight on, both remaining in the top 10. However, within the closing hours, the higher ranked No. 29 GT-One suffered a gearbox failure while in competition for the race win. Thus Toyota was left to take ninth place in the race with the lone No. 27 entry, which ended the race 25 laps behind the winning
Porsche 911 GT1
The Porsche 911 GT1 is a car designed and developed by German automobile manufacturer Porsche AG to compete in the GT1 class of sportscar racing, which also required a street-legal version for homologation (motorsport), homologation purposes. The ...
.
Their
1999 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans was the 67th 24 Hours of Le Mans, and took place on 12 and 13 June 1999. The race had a large number of entries in the fastest Le Mans Prototype classes, with Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Lola Cars, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, ...
started bitterly after the team was plagued by multiple
Michelin tyre failures, the situation becoming somewhat reminiscent of 1998, when the No. 1 and No. 2 car were retired.
Martin Brundle
Martin John Brundle (born 1 June 1959) is a British former racing driver, best known as a Formula One driver and as a commentator for ITV Sport from 1997 to 2008, the BBC from 2009 to 2011, and Sky Sports since 2012.
Brundle contested the 1 ...
in the No. 1 Toyota suffered a puncture at high speed on the
Mulsanne Straight, the cars rear suspension was badly damaged and he was unable to get back to the pits. The No. 2 Toyota being driven by
Thierry Boutsen
Thierry Marc Boutsen (born 13 July 1957) is a Belgian former racing driver who raced for the Arrows, Benetton, Williams, Ligier and Jordan teams in Formula One. He competed in 164 World Championship Grands Prix (163 starts), winning three rac ...
was next to go when he suffered a high speed crash under the Dunlop bridge due to a rapid deflation. The car was destroyed and Boutsen suffered injury to his lower back. At the break of dawn, the No. 15 BMW was almost a lap ahead of the No. 3 Toyota which had been quietly cruising around at a steady pace. With this sniff of a win
Ukyo Katayama
is a Japanese former racing driver and team manager, most notable for competing for six years in Formula One. He participated in 97 Grands Prix, debuting on 1 March 1992. He scored a total of five championship points, all of them for the Tyrre ...
put the foot down in the Toyota and set the fastest lap of the race. He narrowed the gap to less than a minute till again a tyre blowout befell the Toyota team again. Katayama was however able to return to the pits for new tyres and continued. He managed to finish second after a valiant effort placing first in the GT-P class. However, they fell short of the overall victory at Le Mans, which would have made them only the second Japanese manufacturer to get an overall win (
Mazda
, commonly referred to as simply Mazda, is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Fuchū, Hiroshima, Japan.
In 2015, Mazda produced 1.5 million vehicles for global sales, the majority of which (nearly one m ...
being the first in
1991
File:1991 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Boris Yeltsin, elected as Russia's first president, waves the new flag of Russia after the 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt, orchestrated by Soviet hardliners; Mount Pinatubo erupts in the Phi ...
).
The GT-One raced only once more, a single entrant appearing in the
1999 Le Mans Fuji 1000km. Although the race mostly consisted of Japanese teams, thus leaving out most of the manufacturers that had competed at Le Mans, Toyota still had to compete against rival Nissan, who also entered their
R391. In the end the GT-One would fall short once again, finishing second and only one lap behind the winning R391.
The GT-One program was not continued into 2000, Toyota instead turning TTE into leaders of the new
Toyota F1
Panasonic Toyota Racing was a Formula One team owned by the Japanese automobile manufacturer Toyota Motor Corporation and based in Cologne, Germany. Toyota announced their plans to participate in Formula One in 1999, and after extensive testi ...
team. This would mark a hiatus in Toyota's attempts at Le Mans until the 2012 season, over a decade later, when Toyota decided to once again contest at the top tier of sports car racing.
Toyota TS030 Hybrid
![Toyota TS030 Hybrid 2012 WEC Fuji FP1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/Toyota_TS030_Hybrid_2012_WEC_Fuji_FP1.jpg)
In October 2011, Toyota announced its return to Le Mans in
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
after twelve-year hiatus, with a
hybrid-powered Le Mans Prototype, sporting a petrol engine similar to that found in their customer P1 car. The car would be entered in the inaugural season of the
FIA World Endurance Championship, though it would miss the
first round of the series.
Toyota suffered a severe setback with a crash in late April preventing the debut of the car at the
2012 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, but managed to get two TS030s ready by Le Mans. Unfortunately, neither car finished the race: the #8 car being driven by
Anthony Davidson
Anthony Denis Davidson (born 18 April 1979) is a British former racing driver, currently working as an analyst for the Sky Sports F1 television channel, as part of the commentary team for WEC TV, as colour commentator for the F1 series of vide ...
suffered a massive crash with a Ferrari 458 (which also fractured two of Davidson's vertebrae), while the No. 7 car hit the
DeltaWing
The DeltaWing is a racing car designed by American race car designer and engineer Ben Bowlby and debuted at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans. The entry was run under the Project 56 name, composed of Ben Bowlby (design), Dan Gurney's All American R ...
and later retired with an engine failure.
Toyota continued to compete in the rest of the WEC season with a single car, collecting three wins including the
6 Hours of Fuji
The 6 Hours of Fuji (formerly the Fuji 1000 Kilometres) is a sports car race held at Fuji Speedway in Oyama, Shizuoka, Japan. The race was held for the first time in 1967, and in 1977 became part of the new Fuji Long Distance Series. In 1982 a sec ...
.
At the
2013 24 Hours of Le Mans
The 81st 24 Hours of Le Mans (French: ''81e 24 Heures du Mans'') was a 24-hour automobile endurance racing event for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars held from 19 to 23 June 2013 at the Circuit de la Sarthe close ...
Toyota achieved its fourth second-place finish at Le Mans with a revised Toyota TS030 driven by
Stéphane Sarrazin,
Anthony Davidson
Anthony Denis Davidson (born 18 April 1979) is a British former racing driver, currently working as an analyst for the Sky Sports F1 television channel, as part of the commentary team for WEC TV, as colour commentator for the F1 series of vide ...
and
Sébastien Buemi
Sébastien Olivier Buemi (born 31 October 1988) is a Swiss professional racing driver, who competes in the FIA Formula E Championship for Envision Racing. He competed for Scuderia Toro Rosso in Formula One from 2009 to 2011. After leaving Formula ...
. The sister car finished in fourth several laps down.
Toyota finished the WEC season in second place again, taking two wins at rain-shortened Fuji and Shanghai.
Toyota TS040 Hybrid
Toyota announced in October 2013 that it would continue racing in the World Endurance Championship in 2014. In order to comply with new-for-2014 LMP1 rules, Toyota revealed its new car, the
Toyota TS040 Hybrid
The Toyota TS040 Hybrid is a Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) sports car built and used by Toyota Motorsport GmbH in the 2014 and 2015 seasons of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Work on the car's design began in November 2012, when the Autom ...
. The car has a 3.7L V8 normally aspirated petrol engine powering the rear wheels, and regenerative-braking devices at both axles to allow temporary
four-wheel drive
Four-wheel drive, also called 4×4 ("four by four") or 4WD, refers to a two-axled vehicle drivetrain capable of providing torque to all of its wheels simultaneously. It may be full-time or on-demand, and is typically linked via a transfer cas ...
.
Toyota TS050 Hybrid
The
Toyota TS050 Hybrid
The Toyota TS050 Hybrid is a sports prototype racing car developed for the 2016 Le Mans Prototype rules in the FIA World Endurance Championship. The car is the direct successor of the Toyota TS040 Hybrid, which competed in both the 2014 and 201 ...
was developed for the
2016 FIA World Endurance Championship
The 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship season was the fifth edition of the FIA World Endurance Championship auto racing series co-organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). Th ...
. It was powered by the
H8909 2.4L V6 twin-turbo petrol engine for the first time and a 2.22 kWh battery hybrid system.
Toyota GR010 Hybrid
The
Toyota GR010 Hybrid
The Toyota GR010 Hybrid is a sports prototype racing car developed for the 2021 Le Mans Hypercar rules in the FIA World Endurance Championship. The car is the successor of the Toyota TS050 Hybrid, which competed in the WEC from 2016 to 2020, ac ...
will compete at the
2021 FIA World Endurance Championship
The 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship was the ninth season of the FIA World Endurance Championship, an auto racing series organised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO). The serie ...
under the new
Le Mans Hypercar
A Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) is a type of sports prototype race car that competes alongside LMDh entries in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship. It will also compete in the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) class of the IMSA Sport ...
regulations. It has a 3.5L V6 twin-turbo petrol engine connected to the rear wheels, and a battery hybrid system connected to the front wheels.
24 Hours of Le Mans results
FIA World Endurance Championship results
Season still in progress.
Current business
The company is headed by president Yoshiaki Kinoshita, the man formerly in charge of Toyota's global motorsports programme and previously its Champ Car engine development. Former Toyota F1 technical director
Pascal Vasselon is general manager Chassis Engineering while
Jens Marquardt
Jens Marquardt (born in Sindelfingen, Germany, at 20 May 1967), is a German motor sports engineer and manager, most recently the business development manager of Toyota Motorsport GmbH.
Career
After gaining a degree in aerospace technology, he ...
, the former F1 team manager, has become the head of business development, although he joined
BMW Motorsport in 2011.
Toyota Motorsport is working with "a few dozen" customers on various projects, not all of which are from the motorsport world. Several major projects, including an iQ sports conversion, are being carried out for parent company Toyota Motor Corporation. According to the company's 2010 annual review, Toyota Motorsport has hit its financial targets for the year.
Toyota Motorsport provided their
TF109 F1 car, which they developed and engineered for competing in the
2009 F1 season, to
Pirelli for tyre testing at various circuits for the Italian company, F1's sole tyre supplier. Few details are available regarding the identity of other customers, although media speculation says several leading F1 teams are using Toyota Motorsport's two modern wind tunnels and other testing rigs. In 2011 Ferrari admitted that it was using the TMG wind tunnel
and was still it using in 2013 as it awaits the upgrade to its own wind tunnel.
In October 2010, rumours appeared in the media that Toyota Motorsport had been sold to the
HRT F1 Team
HRT Formula 1 Team, formerly known as Campos Meta 1 and Hispania Racing, was a Spanish Formula One team founded by former driver Adrián Campos. It was sold to José Ramón Carabante before its debut in 2010, and then to investment group Th ...
. These were denied by Toyota Motorsport. Their machinery was eventually acquired by
Stefan Grand Prix, with TMG support. After a failed bid for the 2010 season, Toyota and Stefan Grand Prix parted ways, closing out any possible chance to see
Toyota Racing return in any form to Formula 1.
Toyota Motorsport supplies and supports Toyota 3.4L V8s for
Rebellion Racing
Rebellion Racing is a Swiss racing team that competes in endurance racing. The team competed in the 2011 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup season and won the LMP1 teams' title in the 2011 Le Mans Series season. The team started as an association ...
as a partnership with
Lola Cars
Lola Cars International Ltd. was a British race car engineering company in operation from 1958 to 2012. The company was founded by Eric Broadley in Bromley, England (then in Kent, now part of Greater London), before moving to new premises in Slo ...
. TMG also runs the
Toyota TS030 Hybrid
The Toyota TS030 Hybrid is a Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) sports car built by Toyota Motorsport GmbH and used by the manufacturer in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 and 2013. It was Toyota's first all new prototype since the GT-One ...
in the
FIA World Endurance Championship in conjunction with
Oreca
ORECA (Organisation Exploitation Compétition Automobiles) is a French racing team and race car constructor, founded in 1973 and run by Hugues de Chaunac, former team manager of F1 team AGS. Oreca has had success in many areas of motorsport. ...
as Toyota Hybrid Racing.
In 1997, it became the first motorsports business in the world to be
ISO 9001 certified. TMG continues with a new business model, offering high-performance development, testing and production facilities for clients in the motorsport and automotive sectors
TMG EV P001 electric car
The company revealed in its annual review that it has developed an electric racing car based on the
Radical sportscar, along with Cologne company
e-Wolf. The
TMG EV P001 was developed using knowledge Toyota Motorsport gained during its KERS development for F1 and used some of the company's dedicated engine dynos, including an 'EV component test rig'.
In August 2011 it set a new
lap record for an electric vehicle at the
Nürburgring Nordschleife
The is a 150,000 person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long "North loop" track, built in the 1920s, around the village a ...
of 7mins 47.794secs.
The company says this proves the ability of their technology to be competitive in racing, and that they would like to enter an electric championship.
[TMG EV P001 promotional video, 2011]
List of rally wins
See also
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Toyota in motorsport
Since its introduction to motorsport in the early 1970s, Toyota has been involved in a number of motorsport activities, most notably in Formula One, NASCAR, IndyCar, sports car racing, various off road rallies and the WRC. Currently, Toyota partic ...
References
External links
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Toyota at Le Mans
{{DEFAULTSORT:Toyota Motorsport Gmbh
Japanese racecar constructors
Japanese auto racing teams
German racecar constructors
German auto racing teams
World Rally Championship teams
24 Hours of Le Mans teams
Official motorsports and performance division of automakers
Companies based in Cologne
FIA World Endurance Championship teams
Motorsport GmbH
1979 establishments in West Germany
European Rally Championship teams
Auto racing teams established in 1979
British Touring Car Championship teams