GR Corolla rally car to compete on American soil in 2026

A GR Corolla RC2 rally car developed by TOYOTA GAZOO Racing will compete in the American Rally Association (ARA) National Championship – the premier rallying series in the United States – in 2026.

The car made its public debut as the GR Corolla Rally Concept at the Tokyo Auto Salon in January 2025 and has since undergone further development, overseen by engineers from TOYOTA GAZOO Racing World Rally Team (TGR-WRT) working in collaboration with Rallysport Services, a dedicated entity formed by ARA promotional rights holder Lance Smith.

The GR Corolla Rally RC2 leverages TGR-WRT knowledge and expertise gathered from competing in the FIA World Rally Championship, where it has won six manufacturers’ titles since 2018.

By developing a GR Corolla rally car, TGR-WRT is harnessing the pedigree of the Corolla model within rallying and further expanding its efforts to use motorsport to help make ever-better cars for the road. It also hopes to support the development of rallying in North America, where the GR Corolla is available as a rally-bred performance car for the road.

The car utilises learnings from the proven GR Yaris Rally2 package – which has won back-to-back WRC2 titles as well as numerous events and championships with customer teams around the world – and similarly features a 1.6-litre 3-cylinder turbocharged engine and four-wheel drivetrain. It has been developed for use in national championships such as the ARA, where it will compete in the series’ RC2 class, roughly equivalent to Rally2 level.

One car will compete on seven rounds of the 2026 ARA season, beginning with the 100 Acre Wood Rally on March 13-14, and will be driven by young up-and-coming American driver Seth Quintero.

The 23-year-old already represents TGR in the FIA World Rally Raid Championship (W2RC) and this debut stage rallying campaign will allow him to challenge himself in a new discipline, in line with the ethos of TGR to help drivers develop their skills and achieve their dreams in motorsport. Quintero will be co-driven by experienced Finnish navigator Topi Luhtinen.

Quintero has been involved in the development testing on North American roads alongside experienced TGR-WRT drivers such as Jari-Matti Latvala and Juho Hänninen. The addition of a second car to compete on selected events is also under evaluation.

Quotes:
Seth Quintero
“I’m very excited and grateful to TOYOTA GAZOO Racing for this opportunity. It’s truly an honour to link up with this team and to hopefully enjoy it and learn a lot. It’s a new challenge for me to go stage rallying. I’m used to driving 500 kilometres a day or more in W2RC, so doing up to 100 km a day will bring a different intensity, and switching between the light and nimble GR Corolla and the bigger DKR GR Hilux will be two different worlds – but they are also similar in a lot of aspects and in the driving characteristics. So far, driving the car in testing has been so awesome, and the team has been so welcoming. I’ve got so much respect for everybody involved and I’m really hoping to make the team proud and have a lot of fun together.”

Note to editors
Further details regarding the ARA team structure will be available in the new year. In the meantime, please direct all enquiries to Hans De Bauw hans.debauw@tgr-wrt.com / Peter Allen peter.allen@tgr-wrt.com.

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