1,000 BHP Toyota GR Yaris May Have Set a New World Record

There are much faster cars in the world. A whole community of drag racing enthusiasts will stop at nothing to reduce the time they spend covering the 1/4-mile (402 meters). I have seen six-second cars at work, which are terrifying to most humans. Most people will never drive sub-10-second vehicles, at least not in the foreseeable future. But watching from the sidelines is still pretty exciting from time to time.

Today’s story revolves around Toyota’s GR Yaris, a feisty hot-hatchback that has been around for almost half a decade now. It’s interesting to see that after all these years, the Japanese manufacturer is still using the same philosophy that gave the AE86 a legendary status. Using a 1.6-liter engine may sound underwhelming, but think of the other components: a turbocharger, AWD, a lightweight chassis and WRC-DNA to define it.

Initially, the GR Yaris had a maximum output of around 270 horsepower and 273 lb-ft (370 Nm) of torque. Remember the Japanese manufacturer’s Gentlemen’s Agreement from the ’90s? All those cars had less than 300 hp from the factory, and we all know what happened next. Once people started taking delivery of their GR Yaris cars, we saw plenty of drag racing videos online.

Three years ago, the stock vehicle would run the 1/4-mile in 13.3 seconds. But with a quick tune costing around $1,000, you could improve to roughly 12.9 seconds. Quite a few owners bumped those numbers up to 600 or even 700 horsepower, which is crazy for a three-cylinder engine. At that level, these cars can go from start to finish in 11 seconds or less.

But in the land down under, one company was only keen on building the fastest GR Yaris in the world. A decade ago, you’d see Lamspeed Racing working on Mitsubishi Evos, but the tiny little Toyota has recently become one of their main objectives. Over the past few years, they’ve continuously pushed the development of the hot hatch. In February of 2022, using a G25-550 Turbo, they ran a 10.5-second 1/4-mile, which was already a pretty impressive feat. But anyone who has ever dealt with motorsport knows that squeezing that last bit of performance out of a car can be tricky.

They needed another year to shave off 0.7 seconds from their previous Best ET. And they have been striving to become faster ever since. Earlier this month, they claimed their GR Yaris was the first one in the world to reach the 1,000-BHP on the G16E-GTS engine. And that could only mean they had their eyes set on a potential new record. The following video shows the result of their efforts, which could make this GR Yaris the fastest in the world.

What I love about it is not its ability to go fast in a straight line but its potential to revert back to circuit spec for the World Time Attack Challenge and perform there, too. It recorded a 1:34.6 lap around Sydney Motorsport Park last year with Adam Casmiri driving, and the boost turned up to 44 psi (3 bar). If that’s not impressive, I don’t know what is.