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I think that the ACO might be trying to make Toyota play the game that Audi played against Toyota in 2013 (and vice versa the year before) by trying to get Toyota to basically go faster to make up for reduced stint length. And I have little doubt right now that Toyota might still have something of a pace advantage over a stint.
That hybrid power will probably still be like the diesel power and torque and also like packing big engine or a good forced induction engine relative to the opposition in traffic. And that mapping will still give the options.
One thing that this reduction in fuel tank size (since it seems to be across the board) is that it seems to make it so that everyone in a 6 hour race might have to for sure do 8 fuel stops.
I can see the ACO trying to do one of two things, either let Toyota keep a pace advantage but make them have to take on more fuel later in a race to make it to the end, or roughly equalize pace and stint length.
However, I don't think we can draw definitive conclusions until testing gets under way and we get info on the performance of the newer cars.
We also have to think about tire use. LMP1 tires might be the same size on all the cars, but Toyota the past couple of years at least has been running 13x18" wheels, while Porsche and Audi in '16 ran 14x18", the max currently allowed. Hence, Toyota have been getting pretty good tire wear (especially Shanghai and Bahrain) with up to an inch less rubber on the road due to running narrower wheels than the other factory teams did.
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