Toyota will debut its new engine update at this weekend’s Rally Estonia after the reigning world champions elected to use one of its homologation jokers to make the change.
It has been widely considered that Hyundai has held a top end speed advantage over Toyota since the introduction of the Rally1 regulations last year.
The deficit between the teams was at its most prominent in high speed rallies, in Estonia and Finland, which has prompted Toyota’s engineering department to focus on improving the GR Yaris’ power unit.
“First of all, it was quite clear last year that the faster rallies were little bit difficult for our drivers to keep with the likes of Ott in the Hyundai,” Toyota technical director Tom Fowler told Autosport.
“There was a big battle between Kalle and Ott in Estonia and again in Finland with the two scoring one win each but the wrong way round in terms of their nationalities. We felt like we should have done better from the car side to help Kalle.
“It [the update] is pure performance and of course we always check the reliability of anything we are going to do and make sure it is the same level as the outgoing equipment. The intention of this work has been to find performance in high speed rallies.”
Latvala is hopeful the latest update will close the gap to Hyundai in the outright speed department.
“I think if you look in general the Hyundai has been very strong with its engine,” Latvala told Autosport.
“I don’t think we are more powerful than the others but hopefully we are on the same level as Hyundai now. They have been very strong and I can’t say exactly the differences, but we should be the same now.”
Source: Autosport