The make-up of the Toyota presence in Supercars is now resolved with the Japanese carmaker confirming that Brad Jones Racing will join the fold for 2026.
With BJR to retain its current four-car model, there will be a total of six Supras on the grid given there will also be two from homologation team Walkinshaw Andretti United.
While the teams are now locked in, there is still little in the way of public detail regarding the development of the Supra.
There have been no updates on either aero or engine side from WAU, although the squad did reiterate over the Tasmania Super440 weekend that the project is on time, and that track testing will start early in the second half of the year.
Should the increasingly robust parity measures used by Supercars work, then the Supra should be a competitive package out of the box.
At the same time, the ‘spec’ nature of the Gen3 cars means small differences can have a huge influence on performance, as proven by the parity issues that have marred the Gen3 era.
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Even now the parity work continues with engine changes made on the eve of the Tasmania event.
Like the Ford Mustang, the Supra will be powered by an overhead quad cam V8 motor, vastly different in its architecture to the pushrod Chevrolet V8.
Another question mark hangs over who will form Toyota’s armada of drivers.
WAU has its line-up locked in with incumbents Chaz Mostert and Ryan Wood locked in for at least the first year of the Toyota era.
BJR, however, is far less clear. Out of the current line-up, only one of the four – Andre Heimgartner – is contracted for 2026.
That means all three of the seats currently occupied by Bryce Fullwood, Macauley Jones and Jaxon Evans could be up for grabs.
Another factor to consider is the checkered past regarding new manufacturers and their competitiveness.
In the modern era we’ve seen the likes of Mercedes-AMG, Nissan and Volvo come and go from the sport.
In all cases the new makes became race winners, but the timelines of success, and its consistency, were different.
Nissan lasted longest in the championship but race wins were few and far between for the four-car, Kelly Racing-run presence.
The AMG project was run by Erebus and was ultimately abandoned in favour of running Holdens, while the Volvo, developed by Garry Rogers Motorsport, was highly competitive until the Swedish carmaker pulled the pin at the end of 2016.
Having spent decades trying to lure Toyota to Supercars, the series will undoubtedly want the Supra to be competitive. But despite this being a parity formula, it is also a meritocracy, and in elite sport there are no guarantees.
In this week’s Pirtek Poll we want your thoughts. Can Toyota be a first-year race winner with WAU and/or BJR?
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