TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WRT

[pantealex]

The main reason is marketing. Toyota doesn't need to promote the old model but the new one.

That´s THE reason.

PR.

[dimviii]

https://www.dirtfish.com/rally/wrc/t...earned-so-far/

[dimviii]

https://www.wrcwings.tech/2020/02/10...sign-for-2021/

[mknight]

C. Clark has a point that testing and developing the new car can compromise their performance/development with current one. As he writes in 2016 VW tested 2017 on most pre-event tests, often dropping the 2016 car completely. Imo it showed as by mid-season 2016 Polo wasn't the clearly unbeatable car any more.

Lluis at WRCWINGs for some reasons misses the omission of the small front side-planes ahead of the doors and more importantly the completely different car sides/floor extensions.

[lluisva555]

Big thank you for posting it, dimviii!

Mknight you are right, thanks, the side extensions are not reviewed in detail, because they looked provisional to me. I do mention that there is no top fender vent and no winglet yet, while I'm convinced they will come back in future designs. They are a great contribution to the car balance and I don't expect they want to worsen it. We'll have to wait until the next test and see what they do.

[racerx1979]

C. Clark has a point that testing and developing the new car can compromise their performance/development with current one. As he writes in 2016 VW tested 2017 on most pre-event tests, often dropping the 2016 car completely. Imo it showed as by mid-season 2016 Polo wasn't the clearly unbeatable car any more.

Lluis at WRCWINGs for some reasons misses the omission of the small front side-planes ahead of the doors and more importantly the completely different car sides/floor extensions.

Akio just read this and lol'ed, pulled out his wallet and threw a few thousand dollars in the air and said "we got money fo dayz muthafugga" and walked away.

Toyota has a huge budget and a CEO who is unbelievably passionate. So much so that he has talked to heads of Mitsubishi, Mazda and Subaru to try to get them involved in rallying. I even heard he was talking to Monster Tajima a few months back. Toyota today is not the same as VW in 2016-2017.

[mknight]

Money is not a problem, just like it wasn't for VW. Test days limits are (though a bit less for Toyota than others) if you want to test other places than around Jyväskylä. Furthermore driver and especially engineer availability can also be an issue.

[AnttiL]

Money is not a problem, just like it wasn't for VW. Test days limits are (though a bit less for Toyota than others) if you want to test other places than around Jyväskylä. Furthermore driver and especially engineer availability can also be an issue.

Yeah, and in 2016 you had more test days available (BTW did they have extra days for developing the 2017 cars?).

As for driver availability, Toyota has Hänninen who is their designated test driver, other teams don't really have such guys (Matthew Wilson at M-Sport?)

[deephouse]

Hyundai have Loeb, he is 9 time champ. If he isn't the best "test" driver I don't know who it is. They also had Abbring and he did quite good job.

[AnttiL]

https://www.rallit.fi/tommi-makisen-...uuli-pyoreina/

Tommi says that Elfyn was able to change his driving style in the Sweden PET after the team had some recommendations. After that he hasn't touched the setup during the rally. He also considers Elfyn to be a champion contender