P1racenews AI automatic summary:
Toyota WRC juniors graduate to Rally2 for 2024
The reigning world champion squad, Toyota, has chosen three young Japanese rally talents, Hikaru Kogure, Nao Otake, and Yuki Yamamoto, to join its driver development programme last year. The aim of the programme is to promote a young Japanese driver to its WRC team in the future. After an extensive two-year training programme led by Mikko Hirvonen, Kogure and Yamamoto have been selected to contest Rally2 programmes next year. The programme will become more difficult for them as they step up to Rally2, with tougher competition and higher pace. The driver development programme has been successful in the past, with Takamoto Katsuta progressing to drive Toyota’s fourth WRC entry in 2020. Kogure and Yamamoto are expected to drive Toyota’s new GR Yaris Rally2 car, which is undergoing homologation and will debut next year. Otake will continue his development in the Japanese Rally Championship in a new category introduced in 2024. The process to recruit new young drivers to the TGR WRC Challenge Programme is also underway.
Source: motorsport
