The Toyota GR Super Sport Hypercar Looks Impossibly Tiny Inside

Toyota has revealed its GR Super Sport hypercar-class racer in the flesh for the first time, and it doesn’t exactly look spacious.

Debuting on track ahead of the postponed 88th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours in the hands of ex-Gazoo Racing driver Alex Wurz, the handsome prototype was also photographed with one of the (vast) trophies won by the TS050 hybrid racers that gave birth to it.

The GR Super Sport destined to go head-to-head in a revitalised flagship WEC series for ‘hypercars.’ Aston Martin may still be entering with a Valkyrie from 2022 (but may not, due to F1 commitments) and Peugeot is re-entering the fray with its own mean AF challenger. Both will have road-going versions, as manufacturers latch onto the new rules in ways that deliver greater commercial advantages and make the sport more viable.

And speaking of viable, don’t even think about buying a road-legal GR Super Sport if you’re, err, larger of build. Its tiny cockpit looks like an intimate squeeze for its two occupants on the legendary French circuit, with crash helmets poking up above the top of the windscreen and shoulders that look closer together than two £10 notes in a wallet.

Speaking after his demo lap at the wheel of the car, former Toyota Gazoo Racing driver Alex Wurz said:

“It was an honour to drive this development version of the GR Super Sport for the first time in public, and especially at a circuit like Le Mans which is so closely connected to this car. The GR Super Sport was born at Le Mans so this felt like a homecoming.

“This was my first time to drive the car, so a demonstration lap doesn’t allow me to push the limits but I could already feel that the GR Super Sport has the potential for incredible performance. I could feel the similarities between the GR Super Sport and the TS050 Hybrid in terms of performance, particularly the four-wheel drive and the hybrid system.

“But the engineers tell me this was only a small taste of the GR Super Sport’s true performance so I am super excited to drive it again one day in the near future.”

Toyota’s TS050-based hypercar needs relatively little work done to it, so will be ready to race from the first day of the new rules, which come into effect from 2021. At first its only top-tier rivals will come in the shape of Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, the minnows looking to steal the big boys’ thunder with the curvaceous 007.