00:00 Hey guys, Chris here and we're back at Queensland Raceway, our test track, and today it's pretty
00:04 exciting because we've got the Toyota Yaris GR.
00:07 Now I've heard a lot of good things about this and probably the coolest thing is that
00:11 it brings me back to when I started rallying and they had a mulligation specials with the
00:15 Subarus and the Evo Mitsubishis and now 30 years later nearly, Toyota are doing the same
00:21 thing again which is really, really cool and really exciting.
00:25 Now it's a 3-cylinder 1.6 litre turbo, 200 kilowatts and 370 newton metres of torque
00:31 and one of the most powerful 3-cylinder engines in the world.
00:34 6-speed manual transmission and all-wheel drive which is pretty important in a rally
00:37 car and that's got a clutch pack in the centre rather than the differential and that distributes
00:42 torque front and rear and go from 60 front, 40 rear all the way to 30 front, 70 rear or
00:47 in track mode 50/50, giving you lots of options.
00:50 So I'm really excited to test that out and basically just see how quick this is on track.
00:55 Now I've read a lot of good reviews, haven't seen any lap times yet so it's going to be
00:59 interesting to see where it fits in.
01:00 First I'll do the 0-100 and the braking test and then some hot laps and see how quick she is.
01:19 Alright so initial impressions, I don't mind the seating position, you do feel high, it's
01:25 almost a little bit like a mini SUV but angle's not bad, it's actually quite a soft seat,
01:31 very cushiony which is a little bit strange, it's comfortable but probably in a track car
01:36 you want a slightly firmer seat because you do move around a little bit in the cushioning.
01:39 Steering wheel for me is good size, dash layout's pretty standard, nothing exciting there, I
01:45 would have liked something maybe a little bit more special like a centre dial and a
01:50 big rev number, shift light and all that, that would have been quite cool.
01:54 Let's see the engine.
01:57 Not bad.
01:59 Seems to rev reasonably well.
02:03 Decent torque and it pulls through the rev range so pretty quick, doesn't blow you away,
02:10 it's 200 kW, it's solid but it's not crazy power and reasonably light, it's 1280 kilos
02:17 so pretty light so that's going to be an advantage but the winning part for me is going to be
02:21 the traction, if we can get the balance right, get the traction off the corner then we're
02:26 going to do a quick lap time.
02:29 Brakes actually feel really good, I was impressed with the brakes in the 86 and this feels even
02:36 better for me.
02:37 I really like when you can modulate and control that pressure and the car's not taking over
02:42 and there's no interference there.
02:44 I've turned traction control off, stability control off and pretty much that's all I can
02:49 do and it's going to be interesting to see how it compares to the hot hatches, down a
02:52 little bit on power compared to some of them but you've got the bonus of the all wheel
02:57 drive.
02:58 Alright let's start our flying lap.
03:03 I'm going to try and get a little bit of traction.
03:23 I'm going to try and get a little bit of traction.
03:53 So there you go guys, the Yaris GR.
04:14 Now time wise, it's actually a pretty good time when you look at it for the segment that
04:19 it's in.
04:20 It's a 1.015, so 61.5, right in the middle of the Golf GTI TCR and the Golf R, actually
04:28 faster than the Golf R by two tenths.
04:31 So pretty impressive from a little three cylinder Yaris, that's pretty cool.
04:38 I am impressed with this car, there's so many good little bits about it.
04:41 The suspension which I didn't talk about in the beginning, the initial feeling is excellent,
04:45 similar to the brake pedal, just rolls over a little bit, nice and soft but still with
04:50 support.
04:51 So for an everyday car, throwing around, having fun, like ideal setup, doesn't feel harsh
04:57 and just absorbs all the bumps and I think on a back road this car could be so much fun.
05:02 The gearbox I did struggle a bit with, I had a few mis-shifts and I noticed it got worse
05:07 the more laps I did, so just with the heat, just sometimes felt like I didn't quite fully
05:12 engage the gear and I couldn't quite trust it, so that hurt me a little bit.
05:17 Interesting thing is the best lap I did was the first lap.
05:20 My first flying lap in this car was the quickest lap and after then I went slower and slower
05:24 and slower.
05:25 Now I think there's two main reasons for that.
05:28 First the tyres, there is a rally version coming and it hopefully solves both these
05:33 problems.
05:34 So I think the tyres are good initially but once they've got some heat in them, they just
05:38 never came back to that initial grip that I had and even when we gave it a rest and
05:42 checked the tyre pressures, I could never get it back to that initial feeling, the grip
05:47 and the traction that I needed.
05:49 And the reason I say that is because this doesn't have the differentials front and rear
05:53 that are coming in the rally edition, the Torsen LSDs, that as long as you've got grip,
05:58 I don't think you need those.
05:59 The car is really well balanced, the car's got great traction but as soon as the grip
06:03 drops away and I started to slip a wheel, then the balance went away and I think the
06:07 differentials in the rally edition would really help there.
06:11 But just the tyres are going to make a difference and it's going to be more consistent throughout
06:15 the laps and not drop off as much, that's my gut feeling.
06:19 Now back to the differentials, what I liked about this and it reminded me of the old Subaru
06:24 when you could roll the dial forward and lock the differential and we used to use that in
06:27 Group N cars and basically lock the differential and when that didn't work, you lost a lot
06:31 of time on the stage.
06:33 And also a bit like an active WRC car back in the day where I could adjust the pots in
06:37 the car and I could tune the balance front and rear depending on the tyre wear during
06:42 a stage.
06:43 With this, in track mode with 50/50 torque split, I found when the grip went away, then
06:50 I had a bit more understeer in the fast corners and just couldn't get the car to rotate as
06:57 well.
06:58 Yet as soon as I put it in sport mode which is 30 front, 70 rear, then I could get the
07:02 car to rotate on the entry there.
07:04 But then I lost out at the exit of the corner with the 30/70, so off this slow corner coming
07:10 up here, I definitely had some understeer in sport mode, yet in track mode with the
07:16 more balanced torque split 50/50, then I could have a better drive off the corner.
07:21 So it's great that that's working and working to a level that I can really feel the difference.
07:27 Tune wise, it's solid, like it's not slow but it doesn't blow you away and you can imagine
07:33 from a 3 cylinder, as much power as you can squeeze out of it, there's always going to
07:37 be limitations with the width of power.
07:40 And I'd say the good thing is that it does feel like it revs pretty freely and it revs
07:43 nice and easily and doesn't have any hollow points, just is a good solid package and is
07:49 more than enough.
07:50 If it's running with a Golf R, then that's definitely not a slow car.
07:54 So hats off to the Yaris for that.
07:57 Steering feedback I thought was quite good as well.
08:00 Reminds me a lot of the things of the feeling of an 86, just in a completely different package.
08:06 And anyone getting one of these is not going to be disappointed, I think it's a real little
08:10 rocket ship, great fun, handles well, you're not afraid of living at the edge and you can
08:16 just enjoy this car in so many different driving situations, whether it's a huge track like
08:21 you are here or on a tiny little back road, I think this car can be great fun in many
08:26 situations and that's what we want out here.
08:30 Hope you guys enjoyed the video, if you did, hit the like button and don't forget to subscribe,
08:33 lots of great content coming in 2021 so look forward to that and let us know what you'd
08:38 like to see on the track as well.
08:39 We'll catch you guys again soon.
08:41 (upbeat music)
08:43 (upbeat music)
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