Toyota Prius One-Make Racing Might Be Our New Favourite Motorsport

Hybrid powertrains are nothing new in motorsport. Formula 1 and the World Endurance Championship have used them for years, more recently they’ve been adopted by the World Rally Championship and British Touring Car Championship, and later this year, they’ll be introduced to IndyCar, too.

But what about at the other end of the motorsport spectrum? Does hybrid tech have a place in the lower ranks? Well, if this is anything to go by, we reckon so. This is the Toyota Prius PHEV class in South Korea’s SuperRace championship, and it’s one of the most unexpectedly brilliant forms of racing we’ve seen.

A racing Prius isn't a novelty in itself. For years, the humble hybrid hatch was a fixture in the GT300 class of Japan’s Super GT series, but that was really just a silhouette racer clothed in a wild body that vaguely resembled a roadgoing Prius. What we have here, though, is an entire one-make series just for the long-running hybrid.

It’s hard to track down much information on the championship, but it’s officially backed by Toyota’s South Korean division, hence the prominent Gazoo Racing branding on the cars. Given that the cars lollop about on soft suspension, flash their hazards under heavy braking, and don’t make a whole lot of noise, it seems like the grid is made up of largely standard Prius plug-in hybrids.

Of course, despite the sleek new Prius PHEV making 220bhp and hitting 60mph in 6.6 seconds, the racing isn’t exactly the fastest in the world. Or the loudest. What it lacks in speed and sound, though, it makes up for in the closeness of the racing. It goes to show that, sometimes, the best racing doesn’t happen in the fastest cars, but in equally-matched machinery that a field of 18 drivers can properly get the most out of.

Now that we know the oddly appealing new Prius is coming to Britain after all, we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed for a UK transplant of this series. A support race might spice up the British Grand Prix weekend.