Toyota Gazoo Racing World Rally Team which is based Puuppola in Finland and is managed the four-time FIA World Rally Champion Tommi Mäkinen, have revealed that they are planning to field five cars to the Neste Rally Finland on 6-9 August.
It is not for the first time that the Toyota works team will field a five-car line-up, earlier this year at Rally Sweden, they took five cars for the first time since returning to the championship.
Alongside the three regular drivers line-up consisting of the multiple WRC champion Sébastien Ogier, Welshman Elfyn Evans and young Finnish talent Kalle Rovanperä; they were joined by the Japanese Toyota development driver Takamoto Katsuta and Jari-Matti Latvala, who ran a private entered Yaris WRC in the championship with his team J-M Motorsports Oy.
Latvala missed out a seat in the team for this season but this hasn’t caused him to lose connections with them, he has plans to do some rounds this season in a rented Yaris WRC.
The same five drivers line-up from Sweden are set to tackle the hilly and high speed stages around the city of Jyväskylä in early-August.
Since they came back to the championship, the Yaris WRC car has dominated in the Finnish forests; in 2017 Esapekka Lappi claimed his maiden WRC win and the reigning WRC champion Ott Tänak won the rally in 2018 and 2019.
Mäkinen has high hopes for a fourth win on the team’s home soil with the line-up for Neste Rally Finland featuring two previous winners of the event – Ogier and Latvala.
“It’s good to have five cars coming, It’s interesting for our home event and for the fans.” Mäkinen said.
If the rally will be hosted is yet known as the organizers of the event are still waiting for the official announcement from the Finnish government about the restrictions caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic.
