Toyota adds Ritomo Miyata to WEC Mission programme

Miyata, a slip winner in each SUPER GT and Handsome Formula, will accompany the Toyota World Persistence Championship squad for the relaxation rounds of the season that place no longer conflict with his unique commitments in Japan, beginning with the Le Mans 24 Hours subsequent month.

The 23-year-faded may maybe even be inviting about construction work at Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe’s Cologne imperfect.

Toyota’s divulge revealed that Miyata already participated in a simulator session at TGR-E remaining year and “impressed the group with his using efficiency, and put competitive lap cases, to originate his decision as a WEC Mission driver”.

It added that Miyata’s “continued participation in the programme shall be determined based totally on performances and construction growth”.

Miyata, who has been vocal about seeking to slip in a single other nation in the long gallop, in the intervening time represents main Toyota squad TOM’S in each SUPER GT’s prime GT500 class and Handsome Formula.

He stepped up to Handsome Formula full-time in 2021 after winning the outdated year’s Handsome Formula Lights title, and secured his first victory in the one-seater assortment at Suzuka remaining month.

In SUPER GT, he scored a vital GT500 receive alongside Sacha Fenestraz remaining year at Fuji Speedway, and added a 2nd triumph alongside contemporary accomplice Sho Tsuboi at the same tune earlier this month.

The Toyota WEC Mission programme has been dormant since Kenta Yamashita was chosen to slip in the LMP2 class for High Class Racing throughout the 2019-20 season.

Yamashita opted to prevent the WEC and focal level on his Jap racing commitments on the conclusion of that marketing campaign.

That opened the door for Ryo Hirakawa to take his situation on Toyota’s roster of check drivers and finally step up to exchange the retiring Kazuki Nakajima as a slip driver for the launch of the 2022 WEC marketing campaign.

Toyota’s divulge made no mention of any on-tune opportunities for Miyata. A conflict between the final spherical of SUPER GT at Motegi and the WEC’s Bahrain weekend principles out an appearance in the mature discontinue-of-season rookie check.

In addition, it was announced that two Toyota-backed Jap Formula 4 drivers, Jin Nakamura and Rikuto Kobayashi, will participate in a practising session at the Le Mans 24 Hours that can allow them to “skills first-hand how WEC drivers and engineers take on the mission of Le Mans”.