Toyota GR Super Sport road-going hypercar is coming

Toyota has completed the 87th Le Mans 24 Hours race with a one-two finish at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Victory at the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season finale aside, the trio of Sebastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima also clinched the drivers’ championship to add to the manufacturers’ championship title that the team won at Spa. Clean sweep.

You’d think that after achieving the pinnacle of endurance racing, and the loneliness of “racing alone” after all the other factory LMP1 hybrid teams such as Porsche and Audi left, Toyota would pack up as well, but no. Toyota Gazoo Racing has confirmed that it will continue to participate in the FIA WEC beyond 2020 following the confirmation of new technical regulations.

The team already announced its participation in the 2019-2020 season, the final campaign with the current-spec LMP1 regulations, and now it’s confirming that it’ll be present on the grid when the new generation of endurance race cars make their WEC debut in autumn 2020.

The current champs will race in the 2020-2021 season with a hybrid-powered prototype based on the GR Super Sport road car. Both road and race cars are undergoing design and intensive development at the company’s technical centres in Toyota City, Higashi-Fuji and Cologne, it said.

Track testing of the new race car, the name of which will be revealed at a later date, will begin next year prior to the start of the 2020-2021 season while further details of the GR Super Sport road-going hypercar will be issued in due course.

“For Toyota Gazoo Racing, this new era of competition is a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate our credentials not only as a race team against some of the best in the business, but also as a sportscar manufacturer. I am sure I join fans and competitors in welcoming the new regulations and looking forward to an exciting era of competition in WEC and at Le Mans,” said Shigeki Tomoyama, Gazoo Racing president.

A prototype of Toyota’s Le Mans race car for the road was unveiled at Tokyo Auto Salon and Le Mans last year. The GR Super Sport Concept came with a 2.4 litre twin-turbo V6 engine and the Toyota Hybrid System-Racing (THS-R), delivering a combined output of 1,000 hp, just like the TS050 Hybrid LMP1 race car.

“Competing in the WEC, one of the most demanding motorsports series, and racing at Le Mans – one of the most iconic races – helps us to advance the development of our world-leading hybrid electric technology and enables us to transfer the knowledge we gain into our production cars,” Tomoyama said then.

“As the automotive industry is approaching an era of big changes, we will continue our passion for making cars that are truly exciting. No matter how electronics and digital technology will continue to transform vehicles, we will make sure that our cars will not become just another commodity.

“We started this project because we believe that creating a super sports car that delivers the same appeal as the TS050 Hybrid greatly adds to Toyota’s involvement in WEC. And at some point in the near future, customers will have a chance to get behind the wheel of this incredible machine and experience its astonishing power and driving performance,” he added.

The upcoming GR Super Sport road car is in compliance with the new FIA WEC regulations, which require carmakers to make at least 20 road-going versions of their race cars within two years of the start of competition. As the saying goes: race on Sunday, sell on Monday.

GALLERY: Toyota GR Super Sport Concept

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