Toyota will bring the Corolla name back to rallying with its newly-developed GR Corolla RC2 rally car, which will compete in the American Rally Association (ARA) National Championship next year.
The Japanese brand initially showcased its GR Corolla rally car concept at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January this year. The car has since undergone further development led by Toyota’s World Rally Championship engineers working in conjunction with Rallysport Services, a dedicated entity formed by ARA promotional rights holder Lance Smith.
The car utilises learnings from the proven GR Yaris Rally2 package – which won back-to-back WRC2 titles as well as numerous events and championships with customer teams around the world – and similarly features a 1.6-litre, three cylinder turbocharged engine and four-wheel-drive. It has been developed for use in national championships such as the ARA, where it will compete in the series’ RC2 class, roughly equivalent to Rally2 level.
Former WRC drivers Jari-Matti Latvala, who is also Toyota’s WRC team principal, and Juho Hanninen, have been involved in the development process alongside Toyota’s World Rally Raid Championship star Seth Quintero, who will pilot a GR Corolla RC2 in seven ARA events — beginning with the 100 Acre Wood Rally on March 13-14.
Photo by: Toyota
“The GR Corolla Rally RC2 leverages TGR-WRT knowledge and expertise gathered from competing in the FIA World Rally Championship, where it has won six manufacturers’ titles since 2018,” read a statement from Toyota.
«By developing a GR Corolla rally car, TGR-WRT is harnessing the pedigree of the Corolla model within rallying and further expanding its efforts to use motorsport to help make ever-better cars for the road. It also hopes to support the development of rallying in North America, where the GR Corolla is available as a rally-bred performance car for the road.”
The Corolla is a famous name in rallying for Toyota and this latest development marks its return after more than 25 years. Toyota’s first victory in the WRC was delivered by a Toyota Corolla Levin TE27 driven by Walter Boyce and Doug Woods in America back in 1973. A second version of the Corolla lifted the WRC manufacturers’ title in 1999.
“I’m very excited and grateful to Toyota Gazoo Racing for this opportunity. It’s truly an honour to link up with this team and to hopefully enjoy it and learn a lot,» said Quintero, who is set to drive the third iteration of the Corolla rally car.
«It’s a new challenge for me to go stage rallying. I’m used to driving 500 kilometres a day or more in W2RC, so doing up to 100 km a day will bring a different intensity, and switching between the light and nimble GR Corolla and the bigger DKR GR Hilux will be two different worlds – but they are also similar in a lot of aspects and in the driving characteristics.
“So far, driving the car in testing has been so awesome, and the team has been so welcoming. I’ve got so much respect for everybody involved and I’m really hoping to make the team proud and have a lot of fun together.”
Toyota has also announced that it has added Zeal Jones and Hiroya Minowa to its WRC Challenge Program driver elopement scheme, which helped produce Japanese WRC star Takamoto Katsuta.
Jones, 21, was born in New Zealand to a Kiwi father and Japanese mother, and this year competed in the Morizo Challenge Cup in Japan to further develop his skills. At 16, Minowa is the youngest driver to ever join the programme, and will be switching his focus to rallying having already achieved success in drifting.
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