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The mind behind Toyota's WRC dominator

A little white lie gave Toyota WRC technical director Tom Fowler a leg-up into rally engineering, and he's made good on that opportunity - via a stop-off in nuclear energy

Engineering

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"When the cars left for Monte Carlo. Seriously, it was that close."

That's right, only when the cars were shipped out for the season opener in January 2017 did Toyota Gazoo Racing's technical director Tom Fowler genuinely believe the manufacturer's first works assault on the World Rally Championship since 1999 would be ready to take the start ramp.

Motorsport is full of stories of tight turnarounds and close calls, but this one was about as close as they get. Work began in earnest on the Toyota Yaris WRC in April 2016. That's nine months to build a World Rally Car from scratch.

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