Toyota Gazoo Racing
Toyota's motorsport arm, behind rally and Le Mans winners and the GR line of performance road cars.
Toyota Gazoo Racing, usually shortened to TGR, is the motorsport division of the Japanese manufacturer Toyota. Besides running factory teams in the World Rally Championship, the World Endurance Championship and the World Rally-Raid Championship, it develops technology for the GR sub-brand of performance road cars. That family includes the GR Supra, GR Yaris, GR86, GR Corolla and GR GT. Its European base, TGR Europe, sits in Cologne, Germany, with branches in the United Kingdom and Finland. In October 2024 TGR entered Formula One as a technical partner of Haas F1 Team, and from 2026 it became the team's title sponsor, with a stated aim of helping young Japanese drivers, engineers and mechanics into the sport.
Quick Facts
- Current owner
- Toyota Motor Corporation
- Produced by
- Toyota
- Introduced
- 2007
- Markets
- Worldwide
- Tagline
- Pushing the Limits for Better
Facts from the source article.
Background
The name grew out of a small amateur effort. In 2007 Toyota test driver Hiromu Naruse led a crew of student test drivers and mechanics at the 24 Hours Nürburgring, with Akio Toyoda, then vice president of Toyota, among the drivers. Barred from calling it a works team, they entered as Team Gazoo, after a web portal Toyota had helped set up, and raced discontinued Altezzas and BMW E90s on a tight budget. After Toyoda became president in 2009 the program widened, adding development cars such as the Lexus LF-A and FT-86. In April 2015 the Gazoo Racing, Toyota Racing and Lexus Racing activities were merged under one banner, and works cars adopted red and black stripes on white. The Gazoo Racing Company followed in 2017.
Did You Know?
- The GR Supra shares its platform with the BMW Z4 and is built by Magna Steyr in Austria.
- TGR bought the naming rights to the first corner at Fuji Speedway and called it TGR Corner.
- In team publicity, Naruse was nicknamed Cap and Toyoda was Morizo.
- The GR86 is built at Subaru's Gunma assembly plant.
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