Lexus has raced in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with its RC F since 2017, in accordance to a avenue automobile platform that used to be never intended to bustle in the GT3 arena.
Parent firm Toyota unveiled its GR GT3 Notion at the Tokyo Auto Salon last month. This new create isn’t in accordance to a model from its fresh avenue automobile vary, but is a ground-up, next-generation GT3-specification racer (pictured below) that can be morphed into a future Lexus model.
GR GT3 Notion
Characterize by: Motorsport.com / Japan
Talking at the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona, Andrew Gilleland, neighborhood VP and total supervisor of the Lexus Division, hinted at the direction of drag that his designate has lined up with its mother or father, the Toyota Motor Company.
“Now we have some future merchandise that we’re connecting the dots with TMC and globalizing our GT program, and we prefer to exhaust the attach we bustle,” acknowledged Gilleland. “Clearly with the principles equipment… everyone says have a enormous, wild, furry goal – effectively I’d bask in to slither to Le Mans in some unspecified time in the future. Now I’m now not sure that’s going to ever happen but, boy, that could be chilly.
“So this globalization of GT racing is de facto riding it, even at TMC level, everyone noticed the automobile they showed on stage in Tokyo. You don’t want grand imagination to settle out the attach that’s going.”
On Monday, Lexus teased photos of its “seemingly next-generation BEV Sport” – a prolonged-nosed, short-tailed coupe from a future vary of avenue automobile items that could embody electrification. Its long-established dimensions (below) save it in accordance to those of the GR GT3 Notion.
Lexus BEV Sport
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Characterize by: Lexus
Lexus BEV Sport
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Characterize by: Lexus
Lexus BEV Sport
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Characterize by: Lexus
Lexus’s fresh RC F racer is homologated by 2026, but Gilleland declared: “We is now not going to be racing this automobile in 2026, I will be succesful to thunder you of that. Nonetheless we are succesful of be racing in 2026.
“In our explicit field this day, we’re an underdog. I bask in outperforming brands that we have not any good to be up there with, and we live it repeatedly.
“It’s helping us with TMC, and I deem Akio [Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota] is extremely drawn to sportscar racing, so it’s almost perfect timing for all this to be coming collectively.”
Toyota Racing’s David Wilson, who is to blame for the availability of Lexus’s racing actions in North The US, explained the lifecycle of the Lexus RC F and the draw in which it turned into a “Frankenstein” automobile among IMSA’s GTD ranks.
“I’ll be candid in saying that here’s now not a GT3 automobile,” acknowledged Wilson. “Nonetheless this has been a finding out opportunity for our firm since the automobile we’re racing good now might maybe presumably be an afterthought to construct it a GT3 automobile, and that’s now not the formula you bring a GT3 to market. Sooner than you save the main line on paper, as an engineer you attach that’s going to be a GT3 automobile.
“We call it a diminutive bit of a Frankenstein, to broaden the level of efficiency, and that has been impressive, the work that we’ve performed in North The US in collaboration with our partners in Europe and Asia, to construct a aggressive bustle automobile that’s received races and we’ll preserve racing with it and with a diminutive bit of luck compete for championships.
“Straight away, we’re racing against 10 makes, 35 autos in the GT class – to look Lexus mix it up with Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis – that’s the attach we wants to be, it’s very special. This automobile is homologated by 2026, but I squawk ‘God lend a hand us if we’re level-headed racing this automobile then.’ It’s prolonged in the teeth even this day.
“We’re working in the support of the scenes with our partners and colleagues in Japan on the boost of the following generation, and that’s thrilling.”
