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TOYOTA GAZOO Racing (TGR) World Rally Team (WRT) has secured a podium finish at the 2024 FIA World Rally Championship’s (WRC) Rally Italia Sardegna. Sébastien Ogier and co-driver Vincent Landais’s performance in the No. 17 GR YARIS Rally1 Hybrid Electric Vehicle allowed them to claim a hard-fought, second-place win.
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Akio Toyoda, TGR-WRT Chairman, commented: “The surface in Sardinia is very demanding, and it always gives challenges to our team and cars. TGR has won Sardinia only once so far when Seb got the victory in 2021. Seb and Vincent were doing really well on this harsh and demanding event, but they missed out at the very last moment on the Power Stage. We will turn this frustration into strength and aim for the next victory.”
Ogier was involved in a close battle for the lead for most of the event. While a strong afternoon on day two enabled him to lead into day three, the final day, the competition remained intense, with just 6.2 seconds separating him and his rival going into the deciding Power Stage. A sudden technical difficulty meant that he ultimately missed out by just 0.2 seconds, one of the closest finishes in FIA WRC history.
It is worth mentioning that 2025 Rally Italia Sardinia will be the first to apply the WRC new strategy with a condensed format in line with the new FIA guidelines that are designed to make rallies operationally shorter.
Nevertheless, after packing the competitive action – totalling 266 kilometres – into just 48 hours, it will remain just as demanding, with fast but narrow and technical stages that leave little margin for error. This, combined with rocky tracks and high temperatures, never fails to push vehicles and tyres to their limits.
Over the years, the brand has been participating in many different forms of motorsports, including Formula One, the World Endurance Championship (WEC), and the Nürburgring 24 Hours endurance race. Automaker’s participation in these events was overseen by separate entities within the company until April 2015, when the brand established TGR, to consolidate all of its motorsports activities under one in-house brand.
Representing the brand’s belief that ‘the roads build the people, and the people build the cars,’ TGR highlights the role of motorsports as a fundamental pillar of Toyota’s commitment to making ‘ever-better’ cars. Harnessing years of experience gained under the extreme conditions of various motorsports events, TGR aims to forge new technologies and solutions that bring the freedom, adventure, and joy of driving to everyone.
The seventh round of the 2024 FIA WRC is Rally Poland (June 27-30), which returns for the first time since 2017. It offers competitors fast stages across soft and sandy roads around Mikołajki in the Masurian Lake District in the northeast of the country.
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