On 30th of January 2015, Toyota announced it will make a much anticipated return to WRC in 2017. Cologne-based Toyota Motorsport GmbH will develop Yaris WRC during the next two seasons. The testing, at the moment anyway, will be made by Stephane Sarrazin, Sebastian Lindholm and Eric Camilli.
This is great news for the sport. World rally championship has been a playfield for few teams in recent years. First for Citroën & Ford and now the field is dominated by Volkswagen team. Ford and Citroën are still there but Ford is not a factory team anymore and Citroën has its main focus on WTCC. But there's also Hyundai, a factory team from Korea.
One can guess that Toyota's return was partly inspired by Hyundai team and its comeback to WRC. Hyundai's project has already brought a one-two win, brought by Thierry Neuville and Dani Sordo in Germany last year. Toyota and Hyundai compete in Asian car markets and Toyota's return brings the competition to rally roads. The comeback also rises the profile of Toyota brand.
Toyota has a glorious history in rallying. Toyota Team Europe, led by Ove Andersson, won driver's championship with Carlos Sainz (1990 & 1992), Juha Kankkunen (1993), Didier Auriol (1994) and the team won manufacturers championship in 1993, 1994 and 1999. In those succesful years, Toyota developed rallying cars from Celica and Corolla models. Although Corolla WRC was getting out-dated in 1999, the team won the manufacturers championship in its final year.
Despite this, Toyota had already other plans and it left WRC and moved to Formula 1 - in order to find a bigger arena to showcase its technological skills and raise brand's status. Toyota's F1 project turned out to be less successful: team did not win any race and its best result was 4th place in the championship in 2005 season. Toyota left F1 after season 2009 and since that it has not been involved in high-profile championships, although it has participated, for example, in LeMans 24 hour race and other endurance championships.
Rallying brings Toyota back to its roots. Toyota also increases the profile of WRC: if everything goes well, in 2017 world rally championship will have at least three factory-supported teams: Volkswagen, Hyundai and Toyota. The problem for WRC has been the lack of teams (and the domination of Sébastien Loeb). Now, as Loeb has retired, rallying has been dominated by another Frenchman, Sébastien Ogier. But if the Asian challengers, Hyundai and Toyota, will be able to pose a serious challenge to VW dominance, will the interest and appeal of WRC raise again. And not least because of the return of the iconic rally team.
Carlos Sainz & Luis Moya in Monte Carlo Rallye 1999, the first rally of Toyota's last season in WRC, before its comeback 2017. (photo from Wikimedia)
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