Experienced by Kimatni D. Rawlins
GAZOO Racing pulled the wraps off the menacing GR GT and GR GT3 prototypes this past weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca for the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, which crowned Japanese race icons. It was a pivotal moment for me to receive tutorials on the Japanese race machines from GAZOO master drivers and development specialists in the pit garages during Monterey Car Week 2026.
The creative GR GT brings together Toyota’s 70 years of motorsport history. Positioned as a new GR brand sold through 100 Lexus dealers across the country, 250 GT units will be dedicated annually to the US for the model’s life cycle. The GT3 Racecar will be used only by fully formed motorsports teams, whereas GAZOO Racing (GR) is looking for five to seven teams to pilot its vehicles. During the exciting motorsports gathering, the brand logged interest from aficionados and fans (young and old), who caught up with GR up close at the track and during The Quail. The new legend took over old stomping grounds with fresh and youthful energy.
Back at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, including the legendary Corkscrew, GR sent its GT and GT3 onto American asphalt for the first time using Monterey as the launchpad. Both cars turned hot laps at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion, marking the North American dynamic debut for GR’s newest sports car and its racing counterpart. The GR GT is set to arrive around 2027 with a twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 paired to a single-motor hybrid system. GAZOO Racing expects total output of 641 horsepower or more and 627 lb-ft of torque, routed to the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2-wrapped rear wheels through a carbon-fiber torque tube and a rear-mounted 8-speed automatic transaxle. Those numbers put the GR GT in company with the more serious end of the supercar field before it has even reached production.
Takashi Doi, Project General Manager of the GR GT and GR GT3, said the vehicles feature aerodynamically optimized styling and an all-aluminum body frame, packaged for an ultra-low center of gravity. A driver-first approach was a key focus for GR engineers, configuring optimal driving positions while drawing on the expertise of racing driver and development driver Tatsuya Kataoka, master driver Akio Toyoda aka Morizo, and racing driver and development driver Jack Hawksworth.
Kataoka said that developing the road car and race car simultaneously has produced two different vehicles with similar characteristics. Thus, you can sense the intensity and passion that went into the vehicle. Hawksworth stated that he was blown away by how far along the GT3 was in development. He is extremely satisfied that it is competitive in all arenas and maintains supreme traction and mechanical grip, especially on Laguna Seca. In fact, GR tested the GT at Fuji International Speedway, Nurburgring, Toyota Technical Center in Shimoyama, as well as extreme road evaluations in the US and Europe.
The GR GT3 shares its foundation with the road car but serves a different purpose. Built to FIA GT3 regulations, the top tier of production-based customer racing, the GR GT3 uses the same twin-turbocharged 4.0-liter V8 as the GR GT but swaps the 8-speed automatic for a purpose-built racing transmission suited to wheel-to-wheel competition. GR developed the two cars side by side rather than one after the other, a process that let racetrack engineering feed directly into the road car and back again. That relationship is part of why GR wanted each at Laguna Seca together, rather than introducing them separately on different stages.
Laguna Seca is a demanding proving ground for a debut like this one. The track’s blind crests, tight Turn 2 hairpin, and the plunge through the Corkscrew have pushed race cars and drivers to the limits for decades. Running there instead of a more forgiving circuit says something about how GAZOO Racing views the pair. The timing lined up strategically. This year’s Reunion honored Japanese motorsports history as its featured marque, putting decades of Japanese racing machinery on track and on display throughout the week.
GAZOO Racing traces its roots to a joint passion for motorsports between the late Master Driver Hiromu Naruse and Akio Toyoda. The two built GR around a simple idea: the racetrack is the real proving ground for both technology and the experts developing it. Toyoda made that philosophy personal in 2007, entering endurance racing under his now well-known “Morizo” alias alongside Naruse and a group of Toyota engineers.
That entry became the foundation for what GR is today: a brand built around three GR models and a continued devotion to building sports cars for driving enthusiasts in every generation.
