Toyota has revealed the GR Yaris Rally1 that will compete in the 2024 World Rally Championship with an entirely new black livery.
World rally champions Toyota Gazoo Racing have adopted a striking new matte black livery to replace their classic red, white and black color scheme that has been the norm since Toyota’s 2017 comeback to the WRC.
Although Toyota’s corporate colors will remain on the GR Yaris Rally1, the red and white appearing on the black design is revolutionary. The Japanese manufacturer will also sport the same livery for the upcoming World Endurance Championship campaign alongside WRC.
Not only will Toyota Gazoo Racing use the new livery in the WRC and WEC, but also in other major championships.
Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala is a huge fan of the updated appearance, which was unveiled in Japan on Tuesday.
“I am very proud and honored to show you the new GR Yaris Rally1 for WRC season 2024, and yes, in a completely new color and design compared to last year!” Latvala said.
“It is an exciting time right now with the GR Yaris facelift for 2024 and our customer motorsport program. To celebrate this we wanted to bring an exciting and fresh look for the fans – and it’s quite a make-over from what we started with back in 2017.
“It looks sporty, full of purpose and eye-catching. This is what rally cars are all about.”
Toyota confirmed last month that the GR Yaris will be driven by the same lineup of WRC drivers for the upcoming season. However, Kalle Rovanpera who was recently crowned as a two-time world rally champion, will only be participating in a part of the 2024 campaign like Sebastien Ogier.
This year’s World Rally Championship runner-up Elfyn Evans, will lead the team’s effort alongside Takamoto Katsuta as Toyota has plans to make improvements for the 2024 season. This is despite the GR Yaris was the car that prevailed this year, winning nine of the 13 races.
“I think we are in quite a good situation where we don’t have something you would have to define specifically as a weakness that needs emergency attention,” Toyota’s technical director Tom Fowler said. “But of course there is still things we would like to improve.
“We have a plan for next season already in place to bring some upgrades and it is difficult to say too much about those at the moment.
“For sure, we see that the main situation now is generally uncomfortable performance compared to Hyundai at the moment in the sense that in every type of condition we are very close.
“It is fair to say you never know at which rally which will be the best performing car between the Toyota and the Hyundai. We want to change that.
“We are looking to add performance to the car all of the time in terms of work that really needs proper development or a [homologation] joker application.
“Of course we are always working on small details of reliability but in terms of upgrade packages we are not expecting to do anything.”
Toyota’s WRC rivals Hyundai and M-Sport-Ford will each debut their i20 N and Puma Rally1 cars respectively in the new year. M-Sport will make its 2024 Puma presentation at the Autosport International Show in January.
