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The automotive giant has announced its entry with WAU as its homologation team, but affirms it wants to see “at least four” GR Supras on the grid in 2026.
“We’ll lock down with Walkinshaw first,” said Toyota Australia’s Sean Hanley of a second team.
“That’s our priority, absolutely 100 percent, they’re quite advanced.
“But about mid-year next year, so somewhere around that timing, we’ll be looking for a second team that will work through Walkinshaw as the homologated team obviously.
“We would like to have, ultimately, four cars in the race by 2026, January.”
Asked about how the process of selecting another team will play out, Hanley added: “We’ll announce more details around that in the new year, but clearly we’ve got some thoughts around that.
“We’ll work through [Walkinshaw] on a process of how we do it, and whether it’s an existing team or whatever we can facilitate, and who would be interested to come and join us?
“I guess that’s an important part of it as well.
“So there’s a lot of water to go under that bridge. We will have a very clear selection process in mind, and we’ll work through Walkinshaw and Supercars on how we bring that about.”
A two-team approach would differ from that employed by others that entered the championship during the Car of the Future era.
Nissan (Kelly Racing), Mercedes-AMG (Erebus Motorsport) and Volvo/Polestar (Garry Rogers Motorsport) remained single-team marques during their respective stints in the category.
WAU co-owner Ryan Walkinshaw stressed that having a second team will be of benefit to the overall Toyota program.
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“We’re very, very happy to work with with an additional team in Supercars,” he said.
“It has a lot of advantages. You want to have more than just one team for a manufacturer on the grid for a variety of different reasons.
“Technical alliances with another team is also very, very important, and also having a different frame of reference for ensuring that parity is correct.
“Just having one team makes that quite difficult.
“So having two or three teams does make that job a little bit easier for Supercars and for the other manufacturers to all truly understand where we all sit together.
“And also for the competition, you want to be able to have some sort of equality between the three different manufacturers in the sport.
“So just having two cars on the grid probably doesn’t really make sense.
“It’s good for us to hear that Toyota are looking to try and add at least one more team into the category for when we start in 2026.”
Walkinshaw emphasised there is work to do before putting too much thought into a second team.
“Our initial priority is ensuring that we do all the work from basically tomorrow back into the beginning of next year, to ensure that we have a competitive and reliable race car,” he said.
“Once we’re sure they’ll be in that position, and then opens up the doors for us to see who else wants to race it.”
The current field is split between 10 Ford Mustangs, including the two WAU entries, and 14 Chevrolet Camaros.
