Toyota’s long-awaited entry to the championship has come via former Ford team Walkinshaw TWG Racing and Chevrolet converts Brad Jones Racing.
Homologation squad Walkinshaw developed the Supra body and 2UR-GSE V8 engine for Supercars racing, tackling the latter in partnership with UK firm Swindon Powertrains.
The engine has been the biggest talking point throughout the process and, according to Walkinshaw, a major challenge.
“It’s a lot more complex than the engine that we originally thought we were going to bring into this category,” said Walkinshaw.
“We thought it was gonna be more of a pick up and play, and it’s not.
“It’s really become a sort of hybrid engine from Toyota parts and Walkinshaw knowledge that we’ve developed over that period of time and a much larger program than we initially anticipated.”
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While the engine already competes in GT3 racing via Lexus, a bespoke Supercars version was necessary to fit the performance and durability requirements of the category.
Two iterations of the engine were initially developed between Supercars and Swindon featuring different capacities, before the 5.2-litre version was given the green light.
Track testing began in September last year and ultimately consisted of 5000km of running, which included one of the UK-built test engines dropping a valve at Winton in November.
A final ‘race spec’ was not completed and presented to Supercars until mid-January, leaving tight timelines to get it evaluated and signed off ahead of the Sydney opener.
The race engines were built at Walkinshaw’s current Clayton race headquarters before being sent to Supercars’ dyno in Brisbane to be tuned and sealed.
“There’s an enormous amount of variables outside of your control that you need to try and manage,” Walkinshaw said of the project.
“Some parts that we thought were going to be really easy because they’re here in Australia ended up being parts that we were waiting for a couple of weeks ago that we were worried, ‘oh shit, if we don’t get these, we’re not gonna be able to go racing in two weeks’ time’.
“So, it was a very, very difficult, challenge, but the fact that we managed to accomplish it… it’s a testament to my team, to Bradley’s guys and to our friends at Toyota as well.”
While BJR only received its first engine little over two weeks ago, Walkinshaw said a full fleet of five spares are on site at Sydney Motorsport Park.
Swindon technical director Sylvain Rubio attended recent testing and is also on the ground in Sydney for the engine’s debut.
Walkinshaw is unsure how the Toyotas will fare on debut in Sydney but is optimistic of being in a position to win the sport’s biggest prizes later in the season.
“We’ve got two fantastic drivers and our ambition is that we’re gonna be competitive and we are here to win a championship and win Bathurst. That hasn’t changed,” he said.
“Fortunately we do have the current season structure we had last year with the Finals that it does give us a little bit of breathing space at the beginning part of the year.
“[We can] get our head around anything that has dramatically changed in the car or if there are some mechanical issues that unfortunately may present themselves, then we’ll be ready.
“We’ve got time to react and to ensure that we’ve got a good package for at least most of the season, but particularly the finals and back.”
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