The 2019 season saw TOYOTA GAZOO Racing SA join the fray in the Global Touring Car championship, or GTC for short. While Toyota had taken part in track racing with great success in the past, this was a new foray for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing SA, who enlisted Michael van Rooyen to campaign a brand-new Toyota Corolla in the local series.
During his first year with the team, Van Rooyen took the championship all the way to the wire, barely losing out on the title during the final round of the year. Had he won the championship, he would have joined Toyota legends such as Charl Wilken and Mark Cronje, who were the last works drivers to campaign a Toyota on tarmac.
The start of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the championship in 2020, with now title awarded. The battle continues in 2021, as Van Rooyen and teammate Mandla Mdakane take on the competition.
Team members
MICHAEL VAN ROOYEN
Driver
#95
GTC
An exciting member of the Toyota Gazoo Racing SA squad is GTC racer Michael van Rooyen, who campaigns an all-new Toyota Corolla in the GTC series.
Van Rooyen is something of an anomaly in the team: The only driver without a navigator; and the only car that races on slicks. Toyota last fielded an official entry on tarmac back in 2002, when Charl Wilken and Mark Cronje raced the Toyota Corolla RXI in Class B of the SA Production Car Championship. Wilken won the championship that year, and as such Van Rooyen has big boots to fill.
“We’ve just got to get on and do the job,” says the 38-year-old father of two. “We’re excited about the new car, as well as the changes to GTC in general. All I want to do is go out there and win races.”
Van Rooyen has been around motorsport for the last 18 years, having cut his teeth in karts, before stepping up to Polo Cup in 2005. A stint in Production Cars followed, before Van Rooyen joined the exciting world of GTC in 2016.
MANDLA MDAKANE
Driver
#44
GTC
The name of Mandla Mdakane has become synonymous with motorsport in South Africa, though the quiet Gautenger has also competed in Asia, where he made his mark on circuits like Sepang and Shangai. Born in 1993, Mdakane was introduced to racing by his father, Hamilton, who was himself no slouch behind the wheel. As is often the case with the children of racing drivers, Mdakane gravitated towards the racetrack, and at the tender age of four, he slid behind the wheel of a kart for the first time. The born-and-bred Johannesburger never looked back, and happily proclaims that he has “loved every moment since then.”
Starting in the cadet class, Mdakane worked his way up through the different categories, eventually moving to Asia in order to compete in the Forumla BMW ASIA series. Mdakane, who runs a luxury coach transport company with his father when not racing, is yet to bag his first championship title, but the bachelor has gotten close on a number of occasions.
The opportunity to drive as part of the TOYOTA GAZOO Racing SA team has given him the chance to compete at the highest level of track racing in South Africa, and Mdakane is hoping to add some silverware to the team’s display cabinet. With his eyes set on a move to the Endurance series in Europe in the future, Mdakane will be aiming to make the most of his time behind the wheel of the GTC Toyota Corolla (Quest?), and he is waiting impatiently for racing to resume in South Africa.
Partners
