Toyota Gazoo Racing: From a Nurburgring Student Project to World Rally and Endurance Titles

Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) is the motorsport arm of the Japanese manufacturer Toyota. It takes the brand into rallying, sportscar racing, Super GT and, since 2024, Formula One. The division also feeds its engineering back into the GR range of performance road cars.

What is Toyota Gazoo Racing?

Toyota's motorsport arm, Toyota Gazoo Racing, runs factory programmes in rallying, endurance racing and rally-raid events. Engineers from the division also shape the technology used in the GR performance range. The Formula One partnership with Haas, which began in 2024, is its newest venture.

Its research and development centre is TGR Europe in Cologne, Germany, with branches in the United Kingdom and Finland. The current structure dates from April 2015, when Toyota and Lexus racing activities were unified under the Gazoo Racing umbrella.

Born as a student project at the Nurburgring, the team grew into Toyota's route to world titles in rallying and endurance racing.

How did the team start at the Nurburgring?

Team Gazoo started in 2007 when an in-house crew led by Hiromu Naruse, a Toyota test driver, entered the 24 Hours Nurburgring. Because the company could not use the name Works Toyota Racing, the entry was called Team Gazoo instead, and it raced discontinued Altezza and BMW E90 cars.

Akio Toyoda, then Toyota's vice president, also took part as a driver after learning directly from Naruse. For public relations the drivers were given nicknames, with Naruse known as Cap and Toyoda as Morizo. The budget was minimal, so the Gazoo website reported on the effort as an amateur race project.

How did the Formula One years end?

Toyota Motorsport GmbH, based in Cologne, built Formula One cars for its parent from 2002 to 2009. Racing as Panasonic Toyota Racing, the team scored thirteen podiums, including five second places, but never won a race. It withdrew at the end of 2009, citing the global economic crisis.

The team was the highest budget outfit on the grid and fielded experienced drivers, yet it never won. Its record includes three pole positions and three fastest laps. Toyota's TF110 had already been developed for the 2010 season when the company stopped, and its engines also powered Jordan, Midland and Williams during the period. Honda, Toyota's main Japanese rival, had already left the sport a year earlier, in 2008.

How did Gazoo Racing grow into a road-car brand?

From 2009 the company used Gazoo Racing to develop cars such as the Lexus LF-A and the FT-86, with the aim of training people and cars at the Nurburgring. Akio Toyoda became Toyota's president that year, and the scope of the group's motorsport work expanded from there.

Mechanics and engineers for the team are selected from Toyota's own employees, while the drivers include professional racers such as Takayuki Kinoshita, Akira Iida and Hiroaki Ishiura.

The team later honoured Naruse, who died in an accident in June 2010. The GRMN conversion brand was set up in 2009 and the G's sports brand in 2010. Circuit events also grew, among them the 86/BRZ Race and a festival that the team holds each November.

In April 2015 the separate Gazoo Racing, Toyota Racing and Lexus Racing activities were unified under one banner. From then on the works machines wore a common red and black stripe design on white, and a Great Skills Training Department was created to develop people for rallies and Nurburgring work.

In 2017 the Toyota Gazoo Racing Factory was reorganised into the Gazoo Racing Company, an in-house company that feeds race knowledge into road cars. Its sports conversion brands were reorganised into the GR series, and GR Garage bases were set up at dealers in each region.

When did the GR road cars arrive?

The GR range began in 2019 with the GR Supra, which shares its platform with the BMW Z4 and is built under contract by Magna Steyr in Austria. The GR Yaris followed in 2020 as the first GR car Toyota built itself.

The GR Yaris is built at the GR Factory, a dedicated line inside the Motomachi plant. Unlike most car plants it has no conveyor belt. Cars move between stations where experienced technicians, recruited from across the company, do more of the assembly by hand.

The GR86 arrived in 2021 as the second generation of the 86 sports car, developed jointly with Subaru and built at Subaru's Gunma plant. The GR Corolla, unveiled in 2022, was built mainly for North America, while the GR GT of 2025 became the first standalone GR-branded car.

How did the World Rally Team win its titles?

The World Rally Team returned to the championship in 2017 with Yaris WRC cars. It won the manufacturers' title in 2018 and 2021, and drivers' titles followed for Ott Tanak in 2019 and for Sebastien Ogier in 2020 and 2021. Hybrid GR Yaris Rally1 cars arrived in 2022 and brought another manufacturers' title in their first year.

The team was first run by Tommi Makinen Racing, an independent company set up at Toyota's request for the 2017 return. TGR Europe bought that company and its assets in 2020, bringing the operation under the manufacturer's control. The team is based in Jyvaskyla, Finland.

In 2022 Kalle Rovanpera and Jonne Halttunen took the drivers' and co-drivers' titles with the hybrid cars. Former rally drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Juha Kankkunen now lead the team as team principals.

How has the endurance programme performed?

Toyota Gazoo Racing has raced in the FIA World Endurance Championship under its own name since 2016, operated by TGR Europe. The team has won the championship four times, with three Le Mans victories in the TS050 Hybrid and two in the GR010 Hybrid. TGR Europe also enters the Nurburgring 24 Hours.

Le Mans wins and world titles are the headline results of the endurance programme, and they sit alongside the team's Nurburgring entries. The Nurburgring is central to the programme's purpose, since the stated aim was to train people and cars there for new car development.

The TS050 Hybrid raced in the LMP1 class, while the GR010 Hybrid is an LMH-class car. Before 2016 the Cologne operation carried the name Toyota Motorsport GmbH, a reminder of how long the German base has been part of the programme.

Super GT, national series and rally-raid

From 2020 Toyota ran the Supra in Japan's Super GT series, working with several partner teams under the TGR name. TGR Team au TOM'S has won the GT500 class in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. The wider group also supports customer teams in Super Taikyu.

Other programmes take the GR86 into one-make series in New Zealand, Australia, North America and South Africa. In Britain, Speedworks Motorsport has run a factory-backed entry in the British Touring Car Championship since 2019, branded as Toyota Gazoo Racing UK since 2020. In Australia, the GR Supra joined the Supercars Championship in 2026.

Dakar and World Rally-Raid entries were run by Toyota South Africa and its local partner Hallspeed from 2012 to 2019. Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel won the car class outright in 2019. From 2020 the programme ran under the global name, and TGR won Dakar in 2022 and 2023 and the first World Rally-Raid Championship title in 2022.

What were the team's main results?

The main results are the WRC manufacturers' titles in 2018, 2021 and 2022, drivers' titles in rallying from 2019 to 2022, Dakar wins in 2022 and 2023, and GT500 titles in 2021, 2023, 2024 and 2025. The table below lists each one by year.

What is the Haas Formula One partnership?

Toyota and Haas F1 Team announced a technical partnership on 11 October 2024. TGR supplies design, technical and manufacturing services, while Haas provides technical expertise and commercial benefits, including TGR branding on its cars. From the 2026 season the team races as TGR Haas F1 Team.

The deal therefore brings Toyota engineering and branding into a Formula One garage without turning Toyota back into a constructor.

Toyoda stressed that this was no comeback, but a way to give its engineers, staff and drivers time in Formula One. In January 2025 Masaya Kaji, TGR's director of global motorsport, said Toyota was looking at a return. In December 2025 the title sponsorship was announced.

The name stays for 2026 even though the company reverts to Gazoo Racing at the start of the year. Toyota's presence in the sport is not new, since its own team competed from 2002 to 2009. In 2025 the division also had a partnership with Hitech Grand Prix, a Formula 2 and Formula 3 team.

What is the legacy of Toyota Gazoo Racing?

Toyota Gazoo Racing has turned competition into road cars and a training pipeline. The GR range and its dedicated factory line grew out of the racing work, and the Great Skills Training Department was set up to develop people for it. The January 2026 decision to return to the Gazoo Racing name, with TGR Europe becoming Toyota Racing by January 2027, marks the next stage.

The reach of the GR brand is also physical. GR Garage bases at dealers in each region carry the motorsport identity into showrooms, so buyers meet the programme where they buy cars.

Gran Turismo 7 hosts the division's virtual motorsport, including the Gran Turismo World Series and the Toyota Gazoo Racing GT Cup. Virtual racing gives fans another way to follow a programme that now spans rallying, endurance, Super GT and Formula One.