Mid-Engined Yaris Makes Belated Super Taikyu Debut

Toyota’s mid-engined GR Yaris M Concept made its belated race debut in last weekend’s penultimate round of the Super Taikyu season at Okayama International Circuit.

The No. 32 machine entered under the pseudo-works Toyota Gazoo Rookie Racing (TG-RR) banner finished third in the Group 2 race on Sunday morning, beating its opposition in the ST-Q class for cars not conforming to any specific technical regulations.

It showed impressive speed, setting the fastest individual lap in Group 2 qualifying in the hands of Masahiro Sasaki, a 1:37.996 that was comparable to the best times seen in the ST-TCR class in qualifying for the faster Group 1 machines.

Sasaki and co-drivers Akio Toyoda (‘Morizo’), Yasuhiro Ogura and SUPER GT regular Hiroaki Ishiura, the quartet finishing third in the three-hour race behind the two leading ST-2 class cars, only losing the lead when Toyoda took over for the final 15 minutes.

The GR Yaris M Concept, originally unveiled at the start of the year at the Tokyo Auto Salon, was originally slated to make its debut in July at Autopolis.

However, the car’s debut was pushed back due to “encountered difficulties inherent to a mid-engine car in braking, steering, and driving” during testing, according to a Toyota press release, after which improvements were made to the engine, body and chassis.

The car is powered by the two-litre, four-cylinder G20E engine that was revealed by Toyota last year, with power delivered to all four wheels.

Gazoo Racing Company President Tomoya Takahashi was quoted as saying at the time of the Autopolis round by the in-house Toyota Times publication: “There are two major challenges we face right now. One of these is heat.

“Because the engine is mounted at the rear, it’s difficult to get air to flow to the engine bay, meaning the engine gets hot and power output is reduced. We’re struggling to work out how to get cool air to the engine and to cool it.

“The second is manoeuvrability. We need to figure out how to take advantage of the characteristics of four-wheel drive and how to distribute power to front and rear.

“A four-wheel drive, mid-engined car is something that Toyota has never done before, and it is extremely difficult to control. The technical hurdles are so high that it makes us embarrassed that we said innocently, ‘We will run at Autopolis’.”

It is currently unclear when the GR Yaris M Concept will be seen in competition again, as TG-RR is scheduled to run the liquid hydrogen-powered Toyota Corolla H2 Concept for the Super Taikyu season finale at Fuji Speedway on Nov. 15-16.

Victory in the Group 1 race at Okayama went to the Seven x Seven Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Kiyoto Fujinami, ‘Bankcy’ and Taichi Watarai, who beat the apr Lexus RC F GT3 of Naoya Gamou, Rikuto Kobayashi, Hiroaki Nagai and Koki Saga.

It marks Seven x Seven’s third win in the four races it has appeared in so far, with the Okayama round marking the No. 666 Porsche’s first outing since the Fuji 24 Hours.