TOYOTA GAZOO Racing (TGR) will compete in the ADAC RAVENOL 24h Nürburgring, held between June 19 and 22, as TOYOTA GAZOO ROOKIE Racing (TGRR), using a GR YARIS and a GR Supra GT4 Evo2.
Team setup
TGRR merges TOYOTA GAZOO Racing, which makes motorsports-bred cars, and ROOKIE Racing, which hones these vehicles as their customers, into a new team based around Morizo, who plays both roles. Morizo first started making ever-better cars and tackling the Ring when he founded the “ancestral” GR in 2007. This is a new setup to make a fresh start with new colleagues, going back to these roots.
■Morizo
“When I started up ROOKIE Racing to tackle the Super Taikyu Series races, the TGR engineers came with me along the path of making cars by ‘break, then fix.’ This sight gave me the same pure feelings as when I was active on the Ring with Hiromu Naruse. If Morizo’s in the middle, then TGR and RR can become one. And I thought that we should speed up making ever-better motorsports-bred cars, and so founded TGRR. With a great driving trainer like Mr. Naruse, who led us to the Ring, I declare that we will tackle it once again, with new members.”
This time, TGRR will use two vehicles, a GR YARIS and a GR Supra GT4 Evo2, with a total of eight drivers. The two car numbers are the same as the two that first tackled the Ring, symbolizing a return to the origins.
| Team | TOYOTA GAZOO ROOKIE Racing | |
|---|---|---|
| Vehicle | GR YARIS | GR Supra GT4 Evo2 |
| Car No. | 109 | 110 |
| Class | SP2T | SP8T |
| Drivers | Morizo | Tatsuya Kataoka |
| Daisuke Toyoda | Masahiro Sasaki | |
| Hiroaki Ishiura | Takamitsu Matsui | |
| Kazuya Oshima | Naoya Gamo | |
Morizo’s starting-point
What Mr. Naruse told Morizo was “Car-making is not debated using words or data; instead, discussions must center on actual vehicles that can be touched and seen firsthand.” In other words, go back to the first principles of making cars. The best way to put this into practice is motorsports, and the 24 Hours Nürburgring endurance race was selected as the stage for this. No matter how much technology advances, it is people who make the most of it or destroy it. And demonstrating this at the harshest arena, a racetrack, is the shortcut to making ever-better cars. Morizo’s “making ever-better cars” starts from here.
■Morizo
“The reason we started to compete in the 24 Hours Nürburgring has remained unchanged since our first go round in 2007, but as the years have passed, our scale grew bigger, for better or worse, and we can’t deny it was trending towards a direction different to its original purpose. This is why I felt we had to return to our starting-point. When they hear the word ‘race,’ some people want results immediately, but I think the key is the process of getting there. In other words, the most important thing for us here is not the goal, but being the starting-point for ‘making ever-better cars.’ If we cannot understand this point, there’s no value in doing this.”
The connections the competing vehicles have with the Ring and the Super Taikyu Series
The GR YARIS was created from a reversal of our normal concept—feeding back the knowledge honed to win the WRC into production vehicles. The GR YARIS is a mass-production sports model that could be a symbol for “making ever-better motorsports-bred cars” that GR has been tackling in recent years. The impact of COVID-19 meant that participation in the 24 Hours Nürburgring was not possible in 2020, so the GR YARIS was used repeatedly in Japan’s Super Taikyu Series to “break and fix.” After that, the GR YARIS was refined at the WRC and the Japanese Rally Championship, but unfortunately, was not able to take part in the 24 Hours Nürburgring. In other words, Morizo needs to stamp his "OK" on the course once it has been run. Putting it the other way, there is also the new challenge of “Can the GR YARIS, which has been honed on stages other than the Ring, handle the 24 Hours Nürburgring?”
In addition, the GR Supra GT4 Evo2, which like the GR YARIS was honed in the Super Taikyu Series and the World GT Championship, will tackle the Ring.
■Morizo
“When I thought about the meaning of racing production vehicles, I put this into practice by using ROOKIE Racing based on the idea that I should connect what we had honed with Mr. Naruse on the Ring with the Super Taikyu Series. The 24 Hours Nürburgring is held once a year, but there are seven Super Taikyu Series races annually, so we can make more attempts than before. We have increased our development speed through links with this creation of ever-better motorsports-bred cars. However, rather than putting one over the other, we can refine our cars better the more paths we have for refining them.”
Toyota Times live sports broadcast from the Ring as well!
In addition to showing the race, the coverage is planned to show behind-the-scenes footage, including live appearances by drivers and coverage of the pit area.
●Don’t miss 24 Hours Nürburgring endurance race: the History of Morizo’s Challenges
