Toyota's racing history began in 1972 when Swedish driver Ove Andersson drove for the manufacturer in the RAC Rally of Great Britain. Andersson subsequently formed Andersson Motorsport and established a rallying program for Toyota, later relocating from Sweden to Brussels and renaming the operation Toyota Team Europe. Toyota's first motorsport victory came at the 1975 1000 Lakes Rally in Finland, where Hannu Mikkola and co-driver Atso Aho won in a Toyota Corolla.
Through the 1980s Toyota built increasing World Rally Championship momentum in long-distance African events with drivers Björn Waldegård and Juha Kankkunen. The WRC breakthrough arrived in 1990 when Carlos Sainz won the drivers' title in a four-wheel-drive Toyota Celica, a feat he repeated in 1992. In 1993, Toyota bought the team from Andersson, renamed it Toyota Motorsport GmbH, and Kankkunen won the world title while Toyota secured the manufacturers' championship — the first Japanese manufacturer to do so. Didier Auriol added a drivers' title in 1994.
In 1995, Toyota was banned for 12 months after being found to have used illegal turbo restrictors at the Rally Catalunya. All points for Kankkunen, Auriol, and Armin Schwarz were stripped. Toyota returned to the WRC with the Corolla WRC in 1997 and came within two points of the 1998 drivers' title with Sainz before withdrawing at the end of 1999, having secured the manufacturers' title in their final season.
After a 17-year absence, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT returned to the WRC in 2017 with the Toyota Yaris WRC, run from Finland under former World Rally Champion Tommi Mäkinen. The program yielded a manufacturers' title in 2018 and drivers' championships with Ott Tänak and Sébastien Ogier in subsequent seasons, bringing Toyota's total to six WRC manufacturers' titles.
Toyota competed in the CART Indy Car World Series from 1996 to 2002. Early years were marked by unreliability and poor results, but fortunes improved from 1999 onward. Juan Pablo Montoya gave Toyota its first CART victory at the Milwaukee Mile in 2000. By 2002, the final CART season, Toyota won the manufacturers' championship, ten races, and the drivers' title with Cristiano da Matta.
Toyota moved to the IRL IndyCar Series in 2003 with factory support for Team Penske and Target Chip Ganassi Racing. Gil de Ferran won the Indianapolis 500 that year and Scott Dixon won the championship. Following the departure of those premier teams to Honda after 2005, Toyota withdrew from IndyCar racing.
Toyota's Le Mans involvement dates to the 1980s with Dome-prepared Group C cars. The factory-supported Toyota GT-One contested Le Mans in 1998 and 1999; in 1999 the GT-Ones were the quickest cars in the field but failed to win after a tire failure late in the race. The GT-One held the Circuit de la Sarthe lap record until 2006.
Toyota returned to Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 with the petrol-electric hybrid Toyota TS030. In 2014, Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi won the WEC drivers' championship in the Toyota TS040 Hybrid. In 2016, a Toyota led for 23 hours and 55 minutes before an inexplicable mechanical failure handed the win to Porsche.
Toyota finally won at Le Mans in 2018 with the Toyota TS050 Hybrid, becoming the second Japanese manufacturer after Mazda to win outright at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Toyota then won at Le Mans in four consecutive years through 2022.
Toyota entered NASCAR with the Camry in 2007, initially through Michael Waltrip Racing, Red Bull Racing Team, and Bill Davis Racing. Kyle Busch delivered Toyota's first Cup win at Atlanta Motor Speedway on 9 March 2008. Toyota subsequently became a regular force in NASCAR, with Joe Gibbs Racing as its flagship operation. Kyle Busch won Toyota's first Cup drivers' championship in 2015, followed by Martin Truex Jr. in 2017 and Busch again in 2019. Toyota also competes in the Xfinity Series with the Supra and in the Craftsman Truck Series with the Tundra, accumulating multiple championship titles across all three national series.
Toyota entered Formula One in 2002 with Toyota Motorsport GmbH based in Cologne, Germany. Despite one of the sport's largest budgets, the team spent eight seasons without a race win. Designer Mike Gascoyne was brought in for 2004 and steered the team to fourth in the constructors' championship in 2005 with 88 points and five podiums — the program's best season. Gascoyne was released in 2006 and performance declined. With the regulation changes of 2009, Toyota ran the double-diffuser-equipped TF109 and scored three third places alongside a one-two qualifying result at Bahrain, but pace fell as rivals developed their cars. Toyota announced its Formula One withdrawal on 4 November 2009, citing the economic environment.
In October 2024, Toyota Gazoo Racing returned to Formula One as a technical partner for Haas F1 Team, and in December 2025 Haas signed TGR as title sponsor, with the team competing as TGR Haas F1 Team from 2026.