The factory team’s Toyota GR Yaris Rally1 cars will compete in the 2024 World Rally Championship with a new matte black livery
As part of the presentation of its motorsport program for the 2024 season, Toyota also unveiled a new livery for its works cars in the World Rally Championship (WRC) on Tuesday in Tokyo.
Instead of the black, red and white livery with which Toyota has competed since its WRC comeback in 2017, the cars will be predominantly matt black in future. Only the Japanese flag and the letters GR will be in red and white.
The livery of the Toyota GR010 Hybrid in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) will also be adapted accordingly. According to Toyota, the livery symbolizes speed and the team’s attitude “We hate to lose”. On the other hand, it stands for prototype and Toyota’s attitude of always building better cars for motorsport and constantly developing further.
However, it is not just the exterior of the Toyota that will change in the 2024 WRC season. The team is planning some updates, even though the car dominated the 2023 season with victories in nine of 13 WRC rounds.
“I think we are in a pretty good position. We don’t have an explicit weak point that we need to fix urgently, but of course there are always things we want to improve,” Toyota’s Technical Director Tom Fowler told Autosport,
“We’re constantly trying to make the car more efficient, whether it’s through development work or by using a joker,” said Fowler. The focus is primarily on the competition with Hyundai: “At the moment, you never know which rally the Toyota or the Hyundai is the better car. We want to change that.”
Toyota will start the 2024 WRC season with an unchanged driver line-up, although only Elfyn Evans and Takamoto Katsuta will contest the entire season. Reigning world champion Kalle Rovanperä will only contest individual rallies and share the third car with Sebastien Ogier