Since 2015, Toyota has been hosting an annual race series; what used to be called the Vios Cup has been replaced by the Toyota Gazoo Racing Philippine Cup (TGR PH Cup). For the 2026 season, the lineup has been expanded to include the next-generation Toyota Tamaraw OMR (One Make Race) spec. Leg 1 took place a few months ago during the height of the Iran-US conflict, with skyrocketing fuel prices dominating the headlines.

There was talk that Toyota would postpone or even cancel the series for 2026 until fuel prices and supply normalized, but in the background, they quietly found an alternative to make the racing even more sustainable. In a bid to lead by example, right before the commencement of the second round of the TGR PH Cup, Toyota made a big announcement, stating that for race weekend 2, all the race cars would be using specially formulated biofuel, in both the diesel Tamaraw and the gasoline Vios. Specifically, the Tamaraw would be using B5-rated diesel, and the Vios would go for E20-rated gasoline.

Toyota says that they worked closely with the Department of Energy (DOE) to be able to revive the Biofuel narrative that was once pushed through legislation as early as 2006. Over the years, the Biofuels Act faded, but the increased fuel prices forced the government to take another look at refreshing the law.

According to Toyota, a sizeable number of their models are already (as standard) able to take and combust biofuel without any significant changes or upgrades. The biofuel-enabled engines have ECUs that are capable of allowing the engine to learn to use the biofuel.

When asked what the key performance indicators will be for the biofuel race program, the brand said that they are looking to measure performance, reliability, fuel efficiency, and emissions. These are the key factors that will drive the data gathering during the race weekend itself; in fact, the data itself will be shared with the DOE for future reference.

I was able to get a unique insight into the performance aspect, given that I’m involved in race management for a Tamaraw race car. According to our driver, performance-wise, the Tamaraw feels the same, with no apparent changes worth mentioning. Toyota says that for them, the fact that the performance remains identical to the regular diesel is a win, given that they would rather that than an actual dip in performance or reliability.

The biggest takeaway we had was fuel efficiency; while there are no official data findings yet courtesy of Toyota, based on our calculations, we saved a lot of fuel. We were given 110 liters of biofuel for the whole race weekend; that includes the practices, qualifying, and races themselves. By the end of the races, we still had around 60 liters of fuel left, accounting for a little over half of our total allocation in terms of total usage. Again, we haven’t seen Toyota’s official data yet, but our internal numbers do point to a higher and more efficient engine when using biofuels.

Toyota remains optimistic about the usage of biofuels for racing moving forward, citing that they will consider making the whole series biofuel-friendly moving forward. Also looking beyond racing, Toyota’s eagerness to boost biofuel use in the Philippines is founded on the idea that our ASEAN neighbors are already using them as well, not to mention the fact that Toyota’s global lineup is filled with biofuel-ready engines, which Toyota Motor Philippines is eager to launch locally should biofuel availability and acceptance rise.

It must be remembered that Toyota, as a brand, is currently is one of the few who use motorsports as a laboratory for new technology, especially when it comes to sustainable propulsion. Just part of their global initiatives are hydrogen race cars in the Japanese Super Taikyu Series, and for the Dakar Rally, they will be debuting a Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle GR Hilux as a race car, utilizing the same technology in the Toyota Mirai.