The Citizen ready to burn rubber in the Toyota GR Yaris

The inaugural GR Cup, as part of the National Race Tour, will be kicking off this weekend, 5 March, at the Killarney Racetrack in Cape Town. This initiative for 2022 will see almost stock standard Toyota GR Yaris hatches taking to the track.

As such, this is a series where anybody can get involved due to the uncomplicated nature of the tweaks allowed to the cars, and by race definition, this also keeps the costs down. What does uncomplicated mean?

No modifications to the engine or software to extract more power are allowed on the GR Yaris. But you still get a full 198 kW of power and 360 Nm of torque from the three-cylinder 1.6-litre turbo engine. And when you couple this to a weight of 1 280 kg and all-wheel drive, it is a Japanese recipe for fun.

On the safety side, the GR Yaris gets a roll cage, OMP TRS seat, TRS Magnum six-point harness, some race pads front and rear with race fluid and upgraded brake lines riding on Dunlop semi slick tyres. There are the obligatory items such as kill switch and fire extinguisher, but that’s about it.

ALSO READ: WATCH: Toyota GR Yaris ‘funnerer’ than other pocket rockets

Zwartkops Raceway played host to our pre-season test session in what were 100 percent untried and tested cars. Talk is cheap, and the test of any race car is doing laps, and hard hot laps one after the other to see what overheats, breaks, or falls off.

We had six cars running laps, and each GR Yaris did about 40 laps, in blazing midday heat with temps reaching into the mid 30’s, and I can report that there wasn’t a single issue with any of the cars 240 laps later. It was only some of us drivers that took a bit of strain.

Were my lap times blistering fast? No. Was I top of the pre-season time sheets? No. I slotted right into the middle of the pack. These cars require a healthy mix of finesse and outright manhandling to extract the best out of them.

Turn in all smooth and try get on the power early, you will induce understeer. Throw the Toyota GR Yaris in too hard and jump on the gas a fraction too late and the speed is scrubbed away.

Then because they are identical, the overall weight of the driver/car combo plays a large part in the lap times, and once a car gets in front of you, getting past is not easy at all.

I can’t wait for some more seat time, and some smoothing out of the rusty bits in my race craft this weekend. All of this bides well for a brilliant first outing this weekend in The Citizen Motoring GR Yaris.

For more information on the Toyota GR Yaris, click here.

Mark Jones is The Citizen’s Road Test Editor and will line up in the GR Cup alongside five other motoring scribes from around the country.