How Toyota GAZOO Racing recycles its WRC parts

“Even if you see us changing the bumpers and spoilers in every service, actually they are not new every time,” reveals Toyota GAZOO Racing Technical Director Tom Fowler. “They are rebuilt from the previous time. Even in a high consumption rally like Safari (Rally Kenya) we are using two or three of each of the bodywork parts.”

In a recent interview with Rally.TV, Fowler explained that the demand for parts varies significantly depending on the surface of each rally, with asphalt rounds requiring minimal changes to his team’s fleet of GR Yaris Rally1s.

“On a Tarmac rally, the car that starts the rally is the same one that finishes it in almost all of the parts because consumption during the event is very low. The wear and tear that needs to be fixed during service is very low.

“Quite the opposite comes for a rally like Safari [in Kenya], which is of course in very extreme conditions, so we need to rebuild the car almost every service.”

Fowler went on to stress the importance of limiting wear and tear before parts become irreparable.

“The way that we [rebuild the car] is by rotating the parts. So, before they become completely destroyed, we remove nearly all of the lower body work – front bumper, rear bumper, sills… and we replace those with reworked ones and we take those off the car and those are refabricated and reserviced and put back in the next time.

However, there is one major variable to Fowler’s finely tuned strategy — the ability of Toyota’s drivers to push the limits of their cars while keeping them on the road.

“As we know, in rally anything can happen and it usually does so. In the case of an accident our mechanics will have a lot more parts to change but, as much as possible, we are reservicing and recycling the parts.”