What it’s like taking part in the 2022 Toyota GR Cup

Resident racer Thomas Falkiner unpacks the marketing genius of Toyota’s one-make series

26 June 2022 - 00:00
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Falkiner duels it out against a rival on track.
Falkiner duels it out against a rival on track.
Image: Supplied

The last time I wrote for these pages was back in February when I announced that I was one of six local motoring scribes picked to compete in the newly formed Toyota GR Cup.

This, for those of you in need of a quick refresher, is an initiative cooked up by Toyota Gazoo Racing SA to test the waters for a single-make race series using the new GR Yaris as its base. Because, you know, why should the Volkswagen Polo get to have our country’s fine racetracks all to itself? Exactly. So I signed my life away, hopped on an aeroplane and headed on down to the Mother City for the inaugural round of this exciting new competition. 

And from the moment us journalists arrived at Killarney International Raceway for our first practice session it was evident that people were indeed interested in the fresh vehicular meat the Gazoo Racing crew had slapped on the table. For here pitting in the middle of the National Extreme Festival’s familiar GTC, Supa Cup and Extreme Supercar classes were a sextet of angry looking GR Yarii (the unofficial plural of Yaris — and I’m claiming it) that racers and, more importantly, trackside visitors could not only relate to but also aspire to own.

Sure, a select few might have the means to purchase an Audi R8 or Lamborghini Huracan as piloted by Charl Arangies and Jonathan du Toit, but for the most part these exotics will remain nothing but a pipe dream: a steely manifestation of wealth they’ll never have.

A smile amidst the heat of battle.
A smile amidst the heat of battle.
Image: Supplied

But a Toyota GR Yaris wrapped in an aggressive white, red and black racing livery festooned with loud stickers endorsing famous brands such as Dunlop and K&N? Now that’s a prospect parked considerably deeper in the financial realm of the everyman: a pedigreed hot hatchback that you can quickly locate on your preferred online classified portal or (if you’re lucky) on the floor of your local Toyota dealership.

Once acquired you’re able to make a few simple tweaks and drive to a track like Killarney where you can — like we did — turn lap times that rival or even surpass that of a Polo Cup car. It’s a savvy form of demonstrative marketing: a return to the “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” ethos first used in the 1950s that used motorsport as a platform to lure people into the seats of fast-paced icons such as the Holden Commodore, Ford Mustang, original E30 BMW M3 and more recently the Subaru WRX STI.

Take an attainable car, put it on the track and if it performs then, hopefully, people will get the message. Certainly at the tracks we have raced on so far — Killarney, Aldo Scribante and Zwartkops — it seems that quite a few have. You see there’s a lot of waiting around in circuit racing and during these treacle-slow hours of limited activity I have had chats with racers and spectators blown away at how capable the GR Yaris appears to be from the bleachers.

Even more so when they hear that this Toyota is pretty much stock standard aside from the mandatory safety equipment demanded by Motorsport SA: a roll-cage, racing seat, five-point harness and floor-mounted fire extinguisher. The extent of the “modifications” consist of Dunlop semi-slicks, a 10mm suspension drop, Ferodo DS2500 brake pads and a K&N filter. The car’s silencer has also been removed for a more rambunctious exhaust note.

And from behind the steering wheel? Well I have got to tell you that this machine has been mightily impressive for what it is. Particularly in the way it manages to circulate so consistently. Often when you take a standard off-the-floor production car and drive it in anger around a racetrack you will notice a noticeable drop-off in performance after just a few laps. Particularly so far as braking is concerned.

Yet from what I’ve experienced the GR Yaris stops hard and true through the entirety of a 10-lap heat — even at circuits like Killarney and Aldo Scribante where you are mashing the middle pedal for all that it’s worth at the end of some of the country’s longest and fastest straights (at Killarney I was reaching a VO2 max of just of 200km/h).

The 1.6-litre three-cylinder turbocharged engine remains equally stable with 30ºC+ Cape Town weather doing little to quell its claimed output of 198kW and 360Nm. Handling is fairly neutral when you click the adaptive all-wheel drive system into Track mode (a 50:50 torque split between the front and rear axles), however when dialled to Sport (30:70 front to rear) the GR Yaris can get surprisingly tail-happy — especially in cooler conditions.

Criticisms? I for one would like some more negative camber and caster angles tuned into the front suspension geometry; a simple tweak that would decrease understeer and help the car turn into corners better. And while the six-speed intelligent manual transmission is joyous on downshifts — automatically blipping the throttle to negate any heel and toe work — it can sometimes get a bit flustered if you rush it too hard on upshifts (particularly second to third).

But all in all the Toyota GR Yaris has so far been a damn fine whip and I’m sure it’ll keep on delivering the goods during the final half of the championship: one in which I’m currently second overall behind ex-Group GT3 racer Ashley Oldfield (cars.co.za).

• Read all my GR Cup race reports (and future updates) by clicking onto TimesLIVE.


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