Toyota Gazoo Racing Thailand (TGRT) has announced that several cars powered by synthetic e-fuels will be racing domestically this year, in a bid to promote carbon neutrality through motorsports.

The models are the Toyota Yaris, Toyota Yaris Ativ (Vios for Malaysia), and the Toyota Corolla Altis – all of which will run on synthetic fuel. While the latter two models will take part in their respective One Make Races, the Yaris and Altis will go on to compete in the Thailand Super Series and Idemitsu Super Endurance respectively.

This, however, isn't the first time TGRT has experimented with carbon neutral fuels throughout their 38-year racing history. In previous iterations of the Idemitsu Super Endurance series, they have fielded GR Supras and GR 86s loaded with the man-made stuff, jostling for places (and even winning!) against conventional counterparts.

Of course, they've got to perform – especially when Chairman Akio Toyoda presides over the whole thing on track as Morizo, piloting a hydrogen-powered GR Corolla.

Meanwhile, TGRT is planning a full year of motorsports-related activities for 2024. Among them is the annual GR GT Cup e-sports series, as well as festivals in Phuket and Chiang Mai in conjunction with races in the named provinces.

So if you want a motorsports-flavoured trip to Thailand, save these dates:

• 1st race, Chonburi, 5- to 7-July
• 2nd race, Phuket, 3- to 4-August
• 3rd race, Buriram, 13- to 14-September
• 4th race, Chiang Mai, 9- to 1-November
• 5th race, Buriram, 19- to 20-December

How is this going to help carbon neutrality?

TGRT's push into using carbon neutral fuel for these Yaris/Vios/Altis is a joint effort between Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) and Toyota Motor Asia (TMA), using the gruelling racing environment as a test bed to emulate real-world conditions.

As far as experiments go, this 'trial by fire' approach through racing is all-encapsulating. For each new technology that is employed, different approaches to producing, transporting, storing, using, and refueling are required – and all of that must be continually improved in time for the next test in another province. It's about as real-world as it gets.

This shuttling between races, for example, has led to considerable improvements to the hydrogen-powered GR Corolla Morizo races around the world. In Japan, it has gone from using slow-filling gas to smoother-flowing liquid hydrogen, shedding considerable weight and halving the refueling time in the process.

But we're all not Morizo, so our focus is justifiably off the circuit. In which case, this manual Corolla Cross GR Sport H2 Concept – worked on by the same people who fettle with GR alternative-fuel race cars – is a road-going prototype that showcases the same technologies available in its speedier cousins.

Pertinently though, the goal isn't to prove that e-fuels (or even hydrogen, for that matter) makes for fast cars. The real goal is to make everything associated with these alternative fuels cheaper, smaller, lighter, and easier, so that the people living in places where DC chargers don't reach are never left out of neither mobilty or carbon neutrality conversations.

It just so happens that with this effort, racing as we know it today – the pure sensory attack of sights, sounds, and smells, something everyone should experience at least once – can go on for longer. Real car lovers know this is a gift too precious to refuse.