January\u2019s 2027 season opener is the first time Toyota\u2019s all-new WRC challenger will lock horns with cars competing under revised Rally2 kit regulations. Fowler clarified Toyota\u2019s position on running a kit-specification GR Yaris Rally2 in 2027.<\/p>\n
\u201cFundamentally,\u201d he said, \u201cthe FIA has two categories: RC1 and RC2 for next year\u2019s World Rally Championship. And our product line-up matches those regulations. If you want to compete in RC1, you can buy a WRC27 car and if you want to compete in WRC2, then you can buy an RC2 car.<\/p>\n
\u201cBringing a third possible option in between those two cars six months out from the start of the season is not sensible when we\u2019re committed to a certain development path. Unfortunately, there will be some people that are thinking they want to convert their [GR Yaris] Rally2 with a kit to be included in RC1. But, honestly speaking, I think it\u2019s quite a limited market.\u201d<\/p>\n
Talking more broadly about the kit regulation, Fowler added: \u201cIt\u2019s not a bad option. It kind of feels like it\u2019s an option for manufacturers who have, let\u2019s say, missed the bus with the immediate WRC27 regulations. Is it going to make a huge difference? I\u2019m not sure \u2013 the 10kg weight-saving will and the aero will help in some circumstances.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we shouldn\u2019t forget we\u2019re talking about cars with regulations which are 15 years old; I\u2019d say around 95% of a Rally2 car is R5. So much has moved on the side of technology, electronics and manufacturing materials and processes since those orjginal regulations were written in 2011.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January\u2019s 2027 season opener is the first time Toyota\u2019s all-new WRC challenger will lock horns with cars competing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145,1733,87700,255603],"class_list":["post-514279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology","tag-toyota","tag-wrc","tag-wrc-2027"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}