24 Hours Hybrid by Toyota, a third edition focused on efficiency

This is already the third edition of the 24 Hours Hybrid by Toyota, a competition held at the Albacete Circuit where every year journalists from all over the country compete against each other.

The goal is clear: to measure the ability to drive on track while maximising the number of laps and minimising fuel consumption.

A third edition full of new features but keeping the spirit

In 2016 Toyota has decided to “renew” its competition, introducing substantial changes to the rules of the race in order to improve its appeal. In the two previous editions, a single model (the Auris) was the mount for each of the selected teams, made up of 5 or 6 members, one of whom was a brand “fan” chosen through a contest on social networks.

This year the changes have come in the form of new models. In fact, with the exception of the newly launched C-HR, which has not yet reached dealerships, all of Toyota’s hybrid models have passed through the hands of every participant in the race, who have had the opportunity to drive on track for 24 consecutive hours.

So this year the mechanical protagonists have been the Yaris Hybrid, the Auris and Auris TS Hybrid, the RAV4 Hybrid and the Prius and Prius+. Keeping the team structure, this year the race had a neutralisation every 4 hours, coinciding with the car change, at which point the front-axle tyres were changed; this year Kumho was the manufacturer sponsoring and collaborating on the event.

Time to compete, we are team 5!

Highmotor has been present once again, after competing in 2015 in an edition that will be remembered for years for its tight and exciting finish, where we achieved an agonising victory by just 0.9 seconds over the runner-up. You can relive it here.

With a team made up of Carlos Enriquez de Salamanca (Todoracing), Nacho Torres (autocasion.com), Roberto Carlos Ferrés (publico.com), Borja Fadón (esdiario.com) and Cosmin Lulian Predoi, from social media, our first stint started, by draw, with the Prius+ as our mount.

After 3’40” of racing, it was time to stop for the first car and tyre change, recording a consumption of 6.4 litres in the hybrid people carrier. The Kumho tyres showed their durability with practically no wear. With a stint in the RAV4 that ended with a high consumption of 8.3 litres/100 km, our position began to fall in the results table.

Little by little the hours went by, and with night closing in we competed with the Yaris Hybrid (4.6 litres) and the Auris (5.9 and 5.4 litres), saving the Prius for last, with which we achieved the lowest consumption of all our cars, just 4.3 litres per 100 km.

This edition had a much more complicated set of rules than the previous one, which forced the race to stop every 4 hours, making the competition “less race” and “more strategy”. With a weighting of 35% on the lap-count score and 65% on the consumption score, our final position was 6th place.

Afterwards, following the end of the race, the race direction decided to disqualify two teams for some irregular detail, so our final position rose to 4th place.

Once again we enjoyed an atmosphere of competition and camaraderie, in which good vibes and effort were the dominant note not only in our team but in each of the six that took part. We should also highlight the great involvement of the brand, which gave us the opportunity to feel like “drivers for a day”, as well as the effort of Kumho, which did not hesitate to showcase the capabilities of its road tyre range, with excellent results, good grip and great wear resistance.

On this occasion we were unable to win, but that has not stopped us from enjoying a great experience. In 2016 the victory went to team number 4, made up of Marcos Martinez (Tele5), Jose María Cernuda (huffingtonpost.es), Aaron Perez (periodismodelmotor.com), Oscar Gonzalez Soria (revistadelmotor.es), David García Artés (diariomotor.com) and Jorge Chillon (social media), whom we congratulate from here. See you next year!

Technical specifications of this car

HatchbackToyota Yaris9 versions · from 24,550 €