Sayonara, Toyota Gazoo Racing, hello again, Gazoo Racing (and Toyota Racing)

In a bit of a surprising move, Toyota has announced that its well-known motorsports arm, Toyota Gazoo Racing, will be reverting to simply Gazoo Racing. This move comes in anticipation of the brand’s 20th anniversary since its founding back in 2007.

For those curious about what will happen to its different activities in motorsports, the TGR Haas F1 Team will retain its name and logo, while its European-based racing efforts will now fall under a new-old banner of Toyota Racing.

This includes a new update to its Hypercar entry in the FIA World Endurance Championship with the TR010 Hybrid Hypercar, a follow-up to the largely successful GR010 Hybrid hypercar.

It will also give new liveries for the GR Yaris Rally2 (World Rally Championship) and the GR Supra GT4 race car, a customer program race machine that teams can buy.

The team also returned to the Nürburgring 24 Hours with the Toyota Gazoo Rookie Racing (TG-RR) team, which will remain as-is, as it bears both names (Toyota Racing and Gazoo Racing). This will serve as a bridge between the two firms, with Gazoo Racing still in charge of developing the products and technologies that make it to road cars today.

For a quick history lesson, Akio Toyoda and several colleagues, including Master Driver Hiromu Naruse, competed in the 2007 Nürburgring 24 Hours. It wasn’t recognized as an official company activity, so the usage of Toyota was not allowed; hence, it was called Team Gazoo, with Akio Toyoda only being able to enter under the name of Morizo.

Despite managing to finish the race, there was a sense of humiliation that pushed Toyoda to create legendary and memorable cars, such as the Lexus LFA, the revival of the 86, the GR Supra, and, more recently, its very successful rally cars for the road, the GR Yaris, and GR Corolla, and its latest halo cars, the GR GT and GR GT3.

Come 2015, Toyota decided to consolidate all of its in-house motorsports activities (Toyota Racing, Lexus Racing, and Gazoo Racing) under the unified Toyota Gazoo Racing banner that we know today, complete with its success stories in various motorsports disciplines.

Do you think this new rebranding and reshuffling is appropriate for the brand’s legendary motorsports arm?

^{Photos from Gazoo Racing, Toyota Racing, and Sam Surla}