The Toyota GR Yaris Has Lapped The 'Ring As Quickly As An FK2 Honda Civic Type R

Regular readers will know that we’re big fans of the new Toyota GR Yaris. The level of engineering that went into it is incredible and it doesn’t share many parts at all with the grocery-getter Yaris. It’s a bargain at £30,000 if you can find one for that price.

It’s seemingly made for a winding British B-road but it turns out it’s pretty impressive around the world’s most fearsome race circuit too. Sport Auto has taken the GR Yaris around the Nurburgring, and found it matched the last-generation Honda Civic Type R to the second. Same track, same driver.

The FK2 Civic Type R brought 306bhp and front-wheel drive to a package that made one of the most aggressive hot hatches of the time. It didn’t feel a million miles away from Honda’s Civic Type R touring car racer, and the newer FK8 only packed an extra 10bhp. The GR Yaris makes do with 50bhp less, but has four-wheel drive for extra traction.

Toyota hasn’t provided its own Nurburgring lap time, but Sport Auto’s is very impressive - their driver Christian Gebhardt took just 8 minutes 14 seconds to complete a full lap of the German mega-circuit, not even bridge-to-gantry. From the video, it’s clear just how impressive the brakes are on the GR Yaris, especially given its short wheelbase. In fact, it just makes us want another go in it.

The time not only matches the FK2 Type R, but it’s also the same time posted for the 2011 BMW 1M Coupe and the 542bhp Range Rover Sport SVR.

There are already a lot of aftermarket options for the GR Yaris, like Litchfield tuning, TOM’s body kit and Cuzco’s 2JZ-swapped racer. As such, we don’t think this is the fastest that a GR Yaris will ever lap the Nurburgring…