FEATURE: TOYOTA GAZOO RACING
YARIS WRC DEVELOPMENT EX By MARTIN HOLMES
Tom Fowler is the Engineering Manager for Toyota Gazoo Racing and their WRC project.
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fter first presenting the Toyota Yaris WRC car with the new team sponsor, Microsoft, at the Paris Motor Show in October 2016, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) personnel were present at the team’s official launch in Helsinki on December 13. It was the first time the car was available for outsiders to learn more about the project. The background behind the project has been very confusing, because the German based Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) company had produced their own unofficial concept car in 2014, well before details of the 2017 regulations had been finalised, and even earlier produced a World Rally Car engine. The WRC project was then moved from TMG in 2015 and awarded by TGR to the small Subaru Impreza competition car operation run by Tommi Makinen Racing (TMR) at a farm at Puupplola, a small village 10km north of Jyvaskyla in Central Finland. From that moment the TMR operation expanded as the WRC work began. Tom Fowler had been a leading member of M-Sport’s WRC operation
at Dovenby, becoming the chief onevent engineer for Mikko Hirvonen. He became one of the small original group of personnel to be recruited by Makinen. He had been living in the tiny Puuppola community for around 18 months at the time of the TGR launch. That was right at the start of the design work, and later he rose to
become Engineering Manager for the team and the head of the Yaris WRC project.
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ur first question to Fowler was how difficult was it to take over the Yaris WRC project from TMG, when Japan dictated that Makinen should be in charge of the work.
How white was the sheet of paper he had in the development of this car? TF: It was completely white, there
was nothing left over from the TMG work. We started exactly from where as a team we wanted to be. The engine supplier for Gazoo Racing is TMG, so the team works with TMG on the engine and the engines are made in Germany. The details of the construction and background of the Global rules engine remain secret, beyond saying the engine in the Yaris WRC was designed by TMG for the current Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris WRC car.
The front and rear spoilers on the Yaris WRC are like something out of the Group B days. 66 | RALLYSPORT MAGAZINE - DECEMBER 2016
Like the other manufacturers, TGR has been working closely with the FIA as the details of the 2017 WRC regulations were being evolved. Details of the permitted aero work were some of the final details to be defined. TGR is reluctant to explain the facilities used for the aero work. Of the various facilities with the 2017 cars, you’ve got aero