The World's Fastest Racing

In 1994 Toyota approved a programme to enter CART racing (later known as Champ Cars), the world’s fastest motor sport series. It is a highly demanding championship, fought out on oval tracks, super speedways, road courses and street circuits.

The series required 2.65-litre V8 engines, running on methanol and producing around 800bhp. Toyota developed the RV8F power plant at its TRD base in California and it subsequently became the first US designed and built engine to win the CART series in 20 years.

Toyota entered the championship initially by supplying engines to two teams: Arciero Wells and Dan Gurney’s All American Racers. It was a steep learning curve, with little success in the first three years. As a result, Toyota changed its racing policy, ending its involvement with AAR and providing its engines to a larger number of teams.

This approach soon yielded better results, with Scott Pruett achieving the first pole position for a Toyota engine at Fontana in 1999. The first race win came courtesy of Juan Pablo Montoya at Milwaukee in 2000 – the first of five for Toyota-powered cars that year, including a one-two for Jimmy Vasser and Montoya at Houston.

In 2001, the Champ Car field featured five teams and nine cars with Toyota engines, between them accounting for six race wins.

Toyota's CART campaign reaped the ultimate reward in 2002. The manufacturer dominated the series with Toyota drivers finishing one-two in the championship (Cristiano da Matta and Bruno Junqueira) and Toyota leading the series in every major category. Overall, Toyota-powered Champ Cars won a series-record 21 races in three successive seasons of competition.

Cristiano da Matta won seven races and seven pole positions for the Newman/Haas team on his way to the CART driver's title and his selection as American auto racing's "Driver of the Year."

Toyota subsequently left the series to make the move into Formula 1, with Cristiano da Matta later signing as one of its grand prix drivers. Meanwhile Toyota’s US racing division switched its attention to oval racing and the Indy Racing League (IRL), claiming a one-two-three finish in its first race at Homestead in 2003. The success continued at the famous Indy 500, where Toyota became the first Japanese engine manufacturer to win on its debut. More than that, it claimed a one-two in the race, courtesy of Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves.

At the end of the 2003 season Toyota picked up the engine manufacturers’ championship and powered Scott Dixon to the overall drivers’ title. Toyota continued as one of IRL’s three engine suppliers until the end of 2005.