Toyota won the Manufacturer's championship, 10 races, and Cristiano da Matta rode Toyota power to the driver's championship, with Bruno Junqueira, also Toyota-powered car, finished second. In 2002, Toyota's final year in the championship, it turned things around completely from its bleak debut. Toyota-powered cars won six races in 2001. The next year, Juan Pablo Montoya gave Toyota its first-ever CART win at the Milwaukee Mile, the first of 5 races won by Toyota-powered cars that year. Toyota started seeing its fortunes improve in 1999 as Scott Pruett took pole position at the final race of the season at the California Speedway. Toyota didn't even lead a lap until Alex Barron led 12 laps at the Vancouver street circuit in September 1998. Toyota-powered cars, campaigned by the All American Racers and PPI Motorsports teams, languished at the back of the grid, slow and unreliable. Its early years in the series were marked by struggles. Toyota raced in the CART Ind圜ar World Series from 1996 to 2002. As of 2022, Toyota has six WRC Manufacturers Titles to date, promoting the brand as the third most successful Manufacturer to grace the championship.ĬART Ind圜ar World Series/IRL Ind圜ar Series Toyota won its fourth Manufacturers title in 2018, while Ott Tänak and Sébastien Ogier won a drivers crown with the Yaris the following years. The team is based in Finland and is run by former World Rally Champion Tommi Mäkinen. Īfter seventeen years of absence, Toyota entered the 2017 World Rally Championship with Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT and the Toyota Yaris WRC World Rally Car. In March 2007, Toyota debuted its Super 2000 -category Corolla rally car, which will compete in the Australian Rally Championship. Toyota decided to quit running in the WRC at the end of the 1999 season, quoting that "all that can be achieved has been achieved." The team managed to secure the manufacturers' title in their last season, four points ahead of their nearest rival Subaru, while Auriol placed third in the drivers' championship, coming within ten points of the drivers' title, and Sainz fifth. Toyota were within six points of the manufacturers' championship. In the 1998 season, Sainz came within two points of the world title, after his Corolla WRC suffered an engine failure only 500 metres from the finish of the final stage of the final rally in Great Britain. The Corolla WRC debuted at the 1997 Rally Finland, with Auriol finishing in eighth place and Marcus Grönholm retiring. Toyota returned to the WRC with a World Rally Car based on the Toyota Corolla. Mosley stated that "there is no suggestion the drivers were aware of what was going on." Double world champion Carlos Sainz driving a Toyota Corolla WRC at the 1999 Monte Carlo Rally. Kankkunen had been in contention for the drivers' world title. FIA president Max Mosley called the illegal turbo restrictor "the most sophisticated device I've ever seen in 30 years of motor sports." Toyota and their drivers, Kankkunen, Auriol and Armin Schwarz, were also stripped of all points in the championships. In 1995, Toyota were caught using illegal turbo restrictors at the Rally Catalunya and were given a 12-month ban by the FIA. This success was repeated a year later, but this time it was Frenchman Didier Auriol who clinched the drivers' world championship. In the same year, Kankkunen won the world title and Toyota won the manufacturers' championship, becoming the first Japanese manufacturer to do so. In 1993, Toyota bought the team from Andersson and named it Toyota Motorsport GmbH. In the 1990 season, Carlos Sainz won the drivers' title, giving Toyota its first-ever world championship title in a four-wheel drive Toyota Celica, and repeated the feat two years later. Group A -category Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205. The team then set-up its all-purpose motorsport facility in Cologne three years later, which is still used today. It was not until the 1980s when Toyota began to gain continuous World Rally Championship success, especially in the long-distance African rallies, where Björn Waldegård and Juha Kankkunen were usually top of the time sheets. Three years later, the team moved to a new base in Cologne, in western Germany. Toyota's first win in motorsport came at the 1975 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland, when Hannu Mikkola and his co-driver Atso Aho won the event in a Toyota Corolla. The team was renamed to Toyota Team Europe. The move turned out to be an impractical one and three years after establishing his team, Andersson moved its base from Sweden to Brussels in Belgium. During the winter of 1972, Andersson formed Andersson Motorsport in his native country and began running a rallying program for Toyota. Toyota's presence in motorsport can be traced back to the latter part of 1972, when Swedish driver, Ove Andersson, drove for Toyota during the RAC Rally of Great Britain. Further information: Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe GmbH and Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT
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