General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. are making historic investments in motorsports as the two Detroit-based companies take on the world’s premier global performance brands in Formula One, Le Mans prototype racing and international GT sports car racing.

Add the third member of America’s Big Three, Toyota Motor Corp.

GM, Toyota and Ford are the new Big Three of U.S. sales with 18%, 15% and 14% market share, respectively (Stellantis is a distant sixth at 9%). And Tokyo-based Toyota is matching its competitors stride-for-stride in motorsports investment as well. With its announcement this month as title sponsor of the American-based MoneyGram Haas Formula One team, Toyota will compete in coming years with GM and Ford in F1, NASCAR and Le Mans endurance Hypercar and GT racing.

Toyota, Toyota

GM will compete in F1 with its Cadillac brand beginning in 2026, and Ford will partner with Red Bull. In NASCAR, Ford and GM’s Chevrolet brand compete. And in endurance racing, Cadillac (Hypercar) and Chevy Corvette (GT) carry the GM flag while Ford is entering Hypercar in 2027 and competes with the Mustang GT3 in GT racing.

Like GM and Ford, Toyota’s moves are intended to enhance its standing as a global performance brand as well as accelerate technology transfer between its racing and production vehicles. Toyota’s aggressive investment also reflects the influence of Toyota chairman and racing enthusiast Akio Toyoda, who — like GM President Mark Reuss and Ford CEO Jim Farley — is a skilled driver himself with a racing license.

“This is a historic commitment by these automakers on a global basis,” said veteran motorsports writer Steven Cole Smith. “The current management teams are committed to performance, and all boats are rising with the tide. The more money, more personalities and more competitiveness in the sports car and F1 market, the more it encourages brands to spend money.”

Toyota has history in motorsports dating back 60 years and its current motorsports division, Toyota Gazoo Racing (TGR), has been a frontrunner in NASCAR (six Cup Series titles since 2015) and international FIA World Rally and Endurance Championships.

This month, however, it took big steps to expand its footprint in production-based GT3 racing and in the world’s premier open-wheel motorsport, Formula One.

Under the new multi-year agreement with the MoneyGram Haas team, Toyota will bring its formidable technical expertise to a mid-pack team that has struggled for resources against F1 giants like Red Bull-Ford, Mercedes and Ferrari. Toyota will replace MoneyGram, which has been title sponsor since 2023, and the team will be renamed TGR Haas F1.

“I’m hugely excited that MoneyGram Haas F1 Team and Toyota Gazoo Racing have come together to enter into this technical partnership,” said Haas Team Principal Ayao Komatsu. “The ability to tap into the resources and knowledge base available at Toyota Gazoo Racing, while benefiting from their technical and manufacturing processes, will increase our competitiveness in Formula 1. In return, we offer a platform for Toyota to fully utilize and subsequently advance their in-house engineering capabilities.”

He said in a media video call that Haas F1 has been “lacking certain resources and hardware capabilities to understand certain things” and is “looking for someone to give us more resource and (who) also have the hardware and know-how of that hardware”.

TGR will join forces with Ferrari, which supplies Haas’s hybrid powertrain, and Italian chassis-maker Dallara, which have been with the team since its inception in 2016.

“By bringing Toyota onboard, (Haas now has a partner) who already has the hardware to build a simulator, and the expertise and people to run it,” reports F1.com correspondent Lawrence Barretto of the sims that major race teams/driers use for race prep.

Toyota said it has no plans to build a full F1 powertrain like Cadillac envisions for its F1 effort by 2029. “However, by doing a deal with such major scope,” said Barretto, “it’s clear Toyota have an interest in potentially expanding their footprint in Formula 1 in the future.”

In addition to engineering, the Haas collaboration allows Toyota to create a driver development for young Japanese drivers, engineers, and mechanics to gain experience in F1’s highly-competitive environment. Similarly, Cadillac is bringing along IndyCar star Colton Herta in its F1 program.

“The time has come for the next generation to take their first steps toward the world stage,” said Chairman Toyoda. “Together with . . . everyone at TGR Haas F1 Team, we will build both a culture and a team for the future. Toyota is now truly on the move.”

The motorsports moves advance Toyota’s performance profile against brands like Ford, Porsche, Chevrolet, Mercedes and others at a time when Chairman Toyoda is determined to establish the Japanese brand as more than a maker of reliable hybrids, and as a maker of high-performance models from its on-road GR and TRD (off-road Toyota Racing Development) sub-brands.

“I think Toyota has always gone for the publicity aspect,” said Cole Smith, who noted that Toyota’s last foray into F1 came in 2002-09. “They like to learn things on a racetrack that they can use in production vehicles. But they also like the fact that they show up in video games as one of the featured cars.”

Publicity in the North American market is also a reason, said Cole Smith, for Toyota’s second big motorsport announcement this month: a new, high-horsepower GR GT production brand halo that will spin off a production-based GT3 race car for sale to customers in the IMSA Weathertech sports car/World Endurance Championship that will go head-to-head against the Chevy Corvette GT3 and Ford Mustang GT3. Toyota already competes in the WEC Hypercar class with its successful GR010 Hybrid.

Indeed, the new GR GT3 car will be based, like Ford’s Mustang GT3 racer, on a $300,000-plus front-engine , V8-powered supercar called the GR GT. Its specs closely track that of Ford’s halo supercar, the $327,960 Mustang GTD.

Chairman Toyoda himself (who races under the pseudonym Morizo) was involved in the GR GT’s development along with professional Toyota team drivers. The GR GT3 racer will replace the Lexus RC F GT3 racer which has compete in IMSA since 2017.

“Toyota likes to race what they sell locally,” said Cole Smith. “Chevrolet has successfully done that with Corvette for years.”

Like the mind-engine Corvette Z06 GT3.R, Toyota’s GR GT3 will be based on the aluminum chassis of a road car, in this case the GR GT. True to Toyota’s commitment to gas-electric hybrids in its production vehicles, the GR GT is stuffed with a gas-electric 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8 engine and a single electric motor. Toyota estimates an output of 650 horsepower. Due to weight and race rule considerations, the GR GT3 will likely drop the hybrid in race trim.

“The GR GT was conceptualized and developed as a road-legal race car,” Toyota said in a press release.

Expect the GR GT and its GT3 motorsports sibling to debut stateside in IMSA in 2027 as well as at the 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside its Hypercar effort. The GR010 Hybrid has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the world’s premier endurance race, six times since 2018.

Ford is also committed to racing Le Mans in Hypercar and GT3 classes in 2027. Cadillac made history in 2025 as the first U.S. brand to sweep the Le Mans front row in qualifying since Ford in 1967.

Henry Payne is auto critic for The Detroit News. Find him at hpayne@detroitnews.com or @HenryEPayne.