ORC ROOKIE Racing Showcases Toyota's Hydrogen-Fuelled Cars

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ORC ROOKIE Racing Team Showcases Toyota’s Hydrogen-Fuelled Cars At Thai Endurance Event

Although the ORC ROOKIE Racing Team did not for run the entire time at the recent Idemitsu 1500 Super Endurance 2022 (Thailand 25-Hour Endurance Race), its cars drew much attention during the first and last few hours that they were running. Their participation was not to compete in the race but to showcase the feasibility of carbon neutrality using existing technology and resources to offer multiple pathways to accelerate carbon neutrality in a prompt and practical manner.

Besides the two entries of the ORC ROOKIE Racing Team (founded and owned by Akio Toyoda, President of Toyota Motor Corporation), there was also a Carbon-neutral fuel car entered by TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Team Thailand which won the finish Carbon Neutral Power Cup and completed completing 443 laps.

ORC ROOKIE Racing’s cars were a GR Corolla H2 concept – using a hydrogen-fuelled engine – and a GR86 CNF Concept which ran on a carbon-neutral (CN) fuel. TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Thailand also used a similar GR86 CNF Concept racing car. Incidentally, one of the cars was also driven by the Toyota President who races under the name of ‘Morizo’.

A few years ago, ORC ROOKIE Racing won the 10-hour Idemitsu 600 Super Endurance 2019, its first time in the race held at the Chang International Circuit in Buriram. After 3 years, the team raced again to test the cars in an environment different from Japan.

ORC ROOKIE Racing and Toyota joined the Super Taikyu series in Japan midway through the 2021 season with a hydrogen-powered Corolla and accelerated efforts of ‘producing’, ‘transporting’, and ‘using’ hydrogen together with like-minded partners inside and outside the industry in the interest of helping to achieve a CN society.

From the 2022 season, in addition to the hydrogen engine Corolla, Toyota is racing the CN fuel GR86 and continuing to explore multiple pathways towards carbon neutrality, with expanded fuel options using internal combustion engines being among them.

In addition, during the ninth round of the World Rally Championship (WRC) in Ypres in August and the 13th round of the WRC Rally Japan in November, the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Team ran a demonstration of the GR Yaris H2 hydrogen engine vehicle (shown above) under test development to show European and Japanese rally fans the potential of hydrogen as an option for achieving CN.