Toyota's updated the GR Yaris again – and it’s confirmed for the UK
New steering wheel, power steering and damper tuning for Toyota’s hot hatch
Toyota has announced a new ‘partially updated’ version of the GR Yaris for 2026, and confirmed it will be made available to UK buyers. The Gazoo Racing department’s approach of constantly honing and updating its models has resulted in a series of small but significant changes for this ‘Type 26’ model.
One of the most obvious visual differences is a new steering wheel, as first seen on the limited-run GR Yaris Morizo RR and Ogier 9x World Champion editions. At 360mm in diameter, it’s smaller by 5mm than the wheel fitted to previous GR Yaris models. Its layout of switches and buttons is also based on that of Toyota’s GR Yaris Rally2 competition car.
The relocated controls followed complaints by competition drivers that it was difficult to turn the original wheel quickly without accidentally catching its spoke-mounted controls with their palms – a gripe common to many modern cars.
Toyota says the new wheel design was tested with clay-moulded prototypes on test circuits, and the new grips make it easier to push on the wheel during hard cornering and maintain a constant grip even with arms crossed at 180 degrees. Its smaller diameter is designed to make it more responsive, and the buttons are ringed with illumination to make them easier to pick out at night.
The electric power steering has been modified too, based on learnings from rallying and circuit racing in Japan, for more consistent response under high cornering loads with high-grip tyres. Stickier Bridgestone Potenza Race tyres will be an option on certain trim levels in Japan, and potentially in the UK too.
> Living with the Toyota GR Yaris, a homologation hot hatch for £20k
Toyota says the front and rear damping has been retuned, too, to maximise tyre performance. Inevitably, there’s also an ADAS update and the car will now include a driver monitor camera. And there’s one more comfort-oriented upgrade: previously in cars with the new upright handbrake (recently introduced in the GR Yaris Aero Performance model), it wasn’t possible to spec heated seats and steering wheel; both are now available.
Sales in Japan will begin on April 6 but good news for UK GR fans is that the car will be offered for sale in Great Britain too. Toyota can only bring a limited number of cars to the UK each year, and Toyota UK says details of availability and pricing will be available ‘later in 2026.’ In Japan the updated model will be available with either the six-speed manual or eight-speed automatic gearbox options; UK transmission availability is yet to be confirmed.
These ‘Type 26’ updates are typical of Gazoo Racing’s iterative improvement approach. Project manager for the GR Yaris, Hiroyuki Yamada, told evo at the debut of the Morizo RR and Ogier 9x editions at the Monte Carlo Rally, that his department conducts racing circuit evaluations once or twice each month, sometimes with Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda in attendance in his hands-on ‘master driver’ role, making suggestions for changes in tuning.
Yamada-san added that his engineering team competes in the Nürburgring 24hr race to aid development: ‘We have a race activity team and road car development team and they communicate items they [have driven] for N24 activity and feed back to the road car development.’
He cites the Morizo RR edition as an example, developed directly from the N24 activity. ‘We don’t stop development or improvement,’ he added.
