Toyota has not set an official Nurburgring lap time for the GR Yaris but if it did, we suspect it could be right up there with some of the quickest hot hatches to ever lap the famed German circuit. When in the right hands, it can even give some much more expensive sports cars a run for their money.
The owner of one GR Yaris recently took the hatch to the ‘Ring and throughout the entirety of the lap, was able to closely follow a Porsche 718 Cayman GT4. Of course, this is more of a display of driving skill on the part of the guy behind the wheel of the Toyota as, with a more skilled driver behind the wheel, the Porsche would have sprinted off into the distance.
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The best way to compare the performance of the 718 Cayman GT4 to that of the GR Yaris is to look at Sport Auto’s list of Nurburgring times as it has independently tested both cars with the same driver. In May 2020, Christian Gebhardt lapped the circuit in 7 minutes and 32 seconds with the Porsche, hitting a top speed of 279 km/h (173 mph) in the process.
By comparison, Gebhardt needed 8 minutes and 14.9 seconds to complete a lap of the ‘Ring with the GR Yaris when he tested it in May 2021. During that lap, the hot hatch reached a top speed of 228 km/h (141 mph).
Helping the GR Yaris perform as well as it does is a 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder engine that pumps out up to 268 hp and 273 lb-ft (370 Nm) of torque in Japanese specification. This engine is coupled to a six-speed manual transmission and a permanent four-wheel drive system, allowing the hatch to hit 62 mph (100 km/h) in just 5.2 seconds.