In 2007, an in-house team consisting of student test drivers and mechanics led by
Hiromu Naruse, who was a test driver of Toyota, competed in the
24 Hours Nürburgring race.
Akio Toyoda, then the vice president of Toyota, who received driving instruction directly from Naruse, also participated as a driver. At that time, he was not allowed to call the team "
Works Toyota Racing". Therefore, the name
Team Gazoo was used instead. "Gazoo" (from ) is the name of a portal site that Toyota was involved in establishing—and in public relations, the drivers were also given the nicknames "Cap" for Naruse and "Morizo" for Toyoda. Also, as there were minimal budgets, they used the
Altezzas and
BMW E90s, which at the time had been discontinued, as the race car project. The Gazoo website posted the activity report as an amateur race project. Gazoo Racing at the
Goodwood Festival of Speed From 2002 to 2009,
Toyota Motorsport GmbH, based in Cologne, Germany, which has been named Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe since April 2020, had been engineering and developing
Formula One cars for their parent company Toyota to compete in the
FIA Formula One World Championship, the highest and the most prestigious single seater auto-racing championship in the world, within these eight years their Toyota Formula One team racing under the name Panasonic Toyota Racing, rarely achieved success with the total of thirteen podium finishes which includes five second places, three pole positions and three fastest laps recorded. Being the highest budget team in the sport with experienced drivers on the F1 grid, they failed to win a single race and withdrew from the sport at the end of the
2009 season, stating the
global economic crisis which had severely affected the automotive industry to be the main reason; Toyota's main Japanese rival in the sport
Honda had already departed from F1 a year before in 2008. Although Toyota had already developed their F1 car
TF110 for the
2010 season but complete withdrawal from F1 activities had put an end to their time in the sport. Toyota also supplied their Formula One engines to
Jordan F1 Racing,
Midland F1 Racing and the
Williams Formula One Team during their eight years time in the sport. From 2009 onwards, as the company continued to participate in their motorsports activities, they introduced and engineered the development models such as the
Lexus LF-A and the
FT-86 with the goal of "training people and cars at the
Nürburgring, the sacred place for new car development" under the
Gazoo Racing name. The drivers include professional racers such as
Takayuki Kinoshita,
Akira Iida, and
Hiroaki Ishiura, but the mechanics and engineers are selected from the employees. In 2014, the team had to play a three-class domination to honor Naruse's accidental death in June 2010. After Toyoda taking office as the President of Toyota in 2009, the scope of Gazoo Racing has expanded, and it has organized several circuit events such as the "86/BRZ Race" and the "Toyota Gazoo Racing Festival", which is held every November. In addition, the sports conversion brands called "GRMN" (
Gazoo Racing, tuned by the Meister of the Nürburgring) and "
G's/G Sports" was established in 2009 and 2010 respectively. From April 2015, all motorsports activities that had been divided into "Gazoo Racing", "Toyota Racing" and "Lexus Racing" have been unified with "Gazoo Racing". Toyota and Lexus brand racing activities are under the Gazoo Racing umbrella and are called "Toyota Gazoo Racing" and "Lexus Gazoo Racing". From this year onwards, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR) works machines use a common color scheme of red and black stripes on a white background. At the same time, the "Great Skills Training Department" has been set up to develop human resources who can participate in Gazoo Racing activities centered on rallies and Nürburgring. In 2016,
Juichi Wakisaka retired from
Super GT and became an ambassador for TGR. TGR also had acquired the naming rights for the first corner of the affiliated
Fuji Speedway and renamed it to "TGR Corner". In addition, actor
Takeru Satoh was appointed as a
television advertisement character to carry out publicity activities. In 2017, the Toyota Gazoo Racing Factory, which had been developing motorsport vehicles, was reorganized and the "Gazoo Racing Company" was established. As an in-house company, it strengthened its independence and contributed to Toyota's car making by feeding back the knowledge gained in the race to road cars, and the direction to secure profitability was decided. The sports conversion brand was reorganized into the GR series ("GRMN", "GR", "GR Sport/GR-S" and "GR Parts"), and the "GR Garage", which is a regional base, was set up at dealers in each region. In 2019, the
GR Supra, the first GR brand-exclusive car, was released. The GR Supra
shares a platform with the
BMW Z4 (G29) and is produced under contract by
Magna Steyr in Austria. In 2020, the
GR Yaris, the second GR-branded car, and the first produced by Toyota, was launched. It is produced at the "GR Factory" inside the
Motomachi plant, a production line dedicated to GR-branded vehicles. Unlike most automobile plants, the "GR Factory" does not use a
conveyor belt assembly line, instead vehicles are built at stations with more manual assembly processes. The "GR Factory" employs experienced technicians recruited from throughout the company. In 2021, the
GR86, the third GR-branded car, was introduced. The vehicle is the second generation of the 86 sports car, which are jointly developed with Subaru, and produced at Subaru's
Gunma assembly plant. In 2022, the
GR Corolla, the fourth GR-branded car, and the second produced by Toyota, was unveiled to the public. Built primarily for the North American market, the GR Corolla is produced at the "GR Factory" alongside the GR Yaris, which is not sold in North America. == Motorsport ==