Not bad for a rally rookie: Toyota’s GR Yaris crew finishes NRC season on a high
Rally rookie Mark Jones and co-driver Kes Naidoo survived a battered radiator (and their mechanics a sleepless night) to bring Toyota Gazoo Racing SA’s GR Yaris home second in class at the National Rally Championship finale.
To Toyota fans, the GR badge carries the same sense of excitement that the M badge does for BMW enthusiasts. But GR is more than a tweaked Toyota road car. No, sir. It’s how one of the world’s biggest carmakers makes its mark in global motorsport, both on- and off-road.
One of Toyota’s specialities is driving at brisk speeds over loose surfaces. Think of the Dakar-winning Hilux and the WRC-winning Yaris. With that DNA, it made sense for Toyota South Africa to bring some of the sideways gravel action to local stages too.
TopGear SA was invited to the final round of the National Rally Championship (NRC), where Toyota Gazoo Racing South Africa (TGRSA) was chasing a class podium to wrap up an exciting year. Motoring journalist Mark Jones and co-driver Kes Naidoo spent the year developing a rally-spec Toyota GR Yaris, sharing the journey through the eyes of someone who had never dabbled in the dark art of rallying.
Now, while gravel racing was a voyage into the unknown for Jones, he is no stranger to putting a helmet on and battling it out on track, having previously raced in the Toyota GR Cup. But racing on a circuit versus racing on gravel is same-same but different, right? Wrong. According to Jones, there are two big differences.
First, a circuit weekend is far more chilled than one where the dust starts flying, since it’s a battle against the clock from the first stage in the morning to the last in the afternoon. Second, rallying is a race of attrition. You could probably get through an entire GR Cup season unscathed, but on a rally stage, Jones found, anything can end your day, whether it’s a malicious rock or a shaft snapped by an impact. Jones is also of the opinion that rallying is substantially more exciting. In his words, “they are two different sports”.
We witnessed this race of attrition first-hand. TGRSA’s plan for a season-ending podium was simple: just finish the rally. While that might sound easy enough, as Jones pointed out, anything can happen. And it did. On the final stage of day one, the GR Yaris landed awkwardly and damaged its radiator. Fortunately, the car made it back in one piece, but the mechanics faced a sleepless night to fix it in time for day two.
After the final stage on day two, the TGRSA crew returned to base unscathed, with second in class confirmed. Toyota SA will hope to build on that in 2027, with a few more GR Yaris rally cars set to join next year’s NRC.
And Dakar? Back to Africa? Sort of
Speaking of rallies, it would be rude not to mention Toyota Gazoo Racing’s 2027 Dakar pursuit. Riaan Esterhuysen of Toyota SA says the team is confident about its entry in this gruelling endurance race, despite being thrown a curveball. The 2027 iteration of Dakar will now start in Portugal rather than Saudi Arabia, and conclude in Morocco.
Esterhuysen says the team is excited by the change of scenery, though it also means a last-minute challenge: preparing for terrain which is unlike the Saudi stages they know. The bigger change, though, is the all-new car TGR is building following the introduction of the ninth-generation Hilux in 2026. New car, new route. Let’s go racing!
Words: Barrie Ferreira
