Meet the Legends: Toyota
The time has come to shine a spotlight on the last of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s current Hypercar heavyweights, as ‘Meet the Legends’ turns its attentions to the ever-innovative, future-focused approach of the series’ most successful entrant.
With an involvement in endurance racing stretching back to the late 1960s, Toyota is the only manufacturer to have consistently contested FIA WEC’s top category since the championship’s inception in 2012. Not just that, but it was a winner as early as its third race, when Nicolas Lapierre and Alexander Wurz – the latter now an ambassador and advisor for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing – piloted the TS030 Hybrid to victory in the inaugural 6 Hours of São Paulo.
Toyota has subsequently gone on to clinch no fewer than six Drivers’ titles and seven Manufacturers’ crowns* at the international pinnacle of the sport – an unrivalled set of statistics. Typical of the brand’s tenacity was its against-the-odds triumph in Bahrain last month, as it dramatically snatched the Manufacturers’ laurels from Porsche’s grip courtesy of a stunning comeback charge.
Four-time world champion Sébastien Buemi was central to that performance, and the Swiss star – as well as fellow Toyota factory driver and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Team Principal, Kamui Kobayashi – offers his thoughts in ‘The Relentless Quest to Invent the Future’. The episode features similarly insightful interviews with GAZOO Racing Company President, Tomoya Takahashi, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Europe Vice-Chairman, Kazuki Nakajima and FIA WEC specialist, Sam Smith.
One topic raised is that while Toyota might be the global benchmark in endurance racing’s current golden age, glory on the racetrack is not its sole objective. The Japanese carmaker has a longstanding philosophy of using motorsport to advance and refine its road-going vehicles in the pursuit of a cleaner, greener future – a vision it proudly shares with FIA WEC.
Leading by example, Chairman Akio Toyoda himself races a hydrogen combustion-engined car, and Toyota has always been a keen advocate for embracing alternative technologies, continually evaluating different solutions in its efforts to enhance the automotive landscape.
A standard-bearer for sustainability, the brand is driven by competition and is as committed to the human side of the sport – developing people and nurturing skills and knowledge – as it is to the engineering aspect. All of which means it is likely to remain a major player in the FIA World Endurance Championship for many years to come...
You can watch the episode here.
*Including the Hypercar World Endurance Championship from 2018 to 2021
