Well, yeap, it is great that it can be possible (maybe with some fine to Toyota Racing, 5000 Euro +/-: D) to have Stéphane Sarrazin in num. 7. So, have two solid crews ... I think Toyota strategy will be clear and from oldstyle days: have two sprint cars to catch a win and one endurance trim behind two Porsches ... and who knows, perhaps num. 9 win a race as Porsche Num. 19 in 2015 (in terms of pace, but it will be f&cking miracle!
) ). I think that last endurance crew that already won Le Mans was Peugeot in 2009. Le Mans tyres strategy is a same as last year, no change on useing numbers of tyres, right?
Good or bad, Stéphane Sarrazin was so many times in driver lineup that battleing a win (in 2014 ... or last year in 6 num .... but there is clear indication that Porsche winning crew from last year in terms of whole performance were naturally better than No. 6 Toyota and more lucky one as No. 5. )
BTW, on June's issue of updated TS050 on Racecar Engineering Pascal Vasselon said that the weakest point was clearly the quality control last year. The part that broke physically [at Le Mans] was a quality issue which was impossible to catch (ehm, like wiring loom in 2014? :-/ ). Now, if they had the same failure, they would be able to do the last lap in four minutes at Le Mans (BTW they had similar problem with num. 6 later on Nürburgring WEC and car finised). It was because whole team
were running short of time of engine developing (well, right, run first dyno on the end of the year ((2015)) and 6 months later win LM? Not possible! ) and didn’t have right mode for the engine. So, late desitions about engine change to fit into a chassis (last year article about TS050 2016 spec. was saying that position of (inter)coolers was a nightmare).
The best picture of TS050 2016 engine so far what I have found is this one...
Attachment 49592
Well, line connector (pipes) from coolers and intercoolers are pretty weird... so maybe not suffering vibrations issues during a whole event... but, seems still a bit strange at whole.