The Japanese team is preparing to enter the 2024 season as the reigning constructors' champions after its GR Yaris won nine of 13 events last year.
Despite being the car to beat last year, the Toyota wasn't completely foolproof. However, for the 2024 season, which begins in Monte Carlo later this month, the team is expected to make updates to further improve the GR Yaris in some areas.
Last month, Toyota unveiled the new look of the GR Yaris, featuring a new matte black livery. The team has faced an intense off-season to prepare the new Rally2 version of the GR Yaris, which will make its WRC debut in Monte Carlo from 25 to 28 January.
“There's a fairly limited amount of homologation wildcards these days, so there aren't any big things you can do over the course of the season,” Latvala told Motorsport.com.
“But of course there are some areas where we need to work, but there is nothing too sensational for 2024 about the car. Which is a help because of course we have a Rally2 program and the first cars will appear in Monte Carlo. In that sense , Rally1 is in a good balance at the moment.”
Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images
Jari-Matti Latvala, Toyota Gazoo Racing team principal
Speaking to Motorsport.com last year, Toyota technical director Tom Fowler said the team is constantly trying to evolve its car to maintain an edge over main rival Hyundai, which is expected to feature a number of updates this year to his i20 N.
“I think our situation is quite good: we don't have anything that can be specifically called a weakness that needs urgent attention, but of course there are still things we would like to improve,” he said.
“We already have a plan for next season to make some improvements. For sure, we see that the main issue now is overall performance compared to Hyundai, in the sense that in all types of conditions we are very close.”
“It's fair to say that you never know in which rally which will be the best performing car between Toyota and Hyundai. We want to change this situation.”
Toyota is expected to field Elfyn Evans, Takamoto Katsuta and Sebastien Ogier in the first race of the 2024 season.
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