Toyota sets target timeline for second Supercars team
Supercars
19 Sep
Toyota looking for second Supercars team
Japanese brand to join 2026 Supercars Championship
WAU confirmed as homologation team
Toyota Australia is searching for second Supercars team, with the brand indicating it will make a call in mid-2025.
Toyota and Supercars made global motorsport news on Wednesday, with the Japanese brand announcing it will join the championship in 2026.
There will be at least four GR Supras on the 2026 grid, with two to be run by Walkinshaw Andretti United, which has been selected as the homologation team.
The GR Supra, which will race with a V8 engine, is set to be campaigned by another team. In 2024, the field is split between 14 Chevrolet Camaros and 10 Ford Mustangs, including the two WAU cars.
“About mid-year next year, so somewhere around that timing, we’ll be looking for a second team that will work through Walkinshaw as the homologated team,” said Sean Hanley, Toyota Australia Vice President Sales, Marketing and Franchise Operations.
“We would like to have, ultimately, four cars in the race by 2026, January.”
Asked about selecting a second team, Hanley said: “We’ll announce more details around that in the new year, but clearly we’ve got some thoughts around that.
“We’ll work through [Walkinshaw] on a process of how we do it, and whether it’s an existing team or whatever we can facilitate, and who would be interested to come and join us? I guess that’s an important part of it as well.
“There’s a lot of water to go under that bridge. We will have a very clear selection process in mind, and we’ll work through Walkinshaw and Supercars on how we bring that about.”
While the likes of Nissan, Volvo and Mercedes-AMG all competed in the last decade, they were tied to a single team. Kelly Racing ran the Nissan programme (2013-19), Erebus Motorsport (2013-15) raced with three Mercedes entries, and Garry Rogers Motorsport (2014-16) raced Volvos.
Erebus has already left the door open to a move, with CEO Barry Ryan saying his team would "definitely consider" talking to Toyota. Team 18 also has ties to the Toyota family through its partnership with Toyota Forklifts.
WAU Director Ryan Walkinshaw insisted having a second Toyota team would benefit the programme, saying: "We’re very, very happy to work with an additional team in Supercars.
“It has a lot of advantages. You want to have more than just one team for a manufacturer on the grid for a variety of different reasons.
“Technical alliances with another team is also very, very important, and also having a different frame of reference for ensuring that parity is correct. Just having one team makes that quite difficult.
“Having two or three teams does make that job a little bit easier for Supercars and for the other manufacturers to all truly understand where we all sit together.
“And also for the competition, you want to be able to have some sort of equality between the three different manufacturers in the sport. So just having two cars on the grid probably doesn’t really make sense.
“It’s good for us to hear that Toyota are looking to try and add at least one more team into the category for when we start in 2026.”
The 2024 Repco Supercars Championship will resume at the Repco Bathurst 1000, where a full-scale Toyota Supra model will be display. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
Live coverage can be found on Foxtel, with live streaming available on Kayo. The Seven Network will take free to air coverage. International viewers can follow all the action on Superview.
