[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[broadrun96]

Originally Posted by Coldasice

2013 was an exception year. The general pattern has been fast but fragile cars for Toyota.

Also if the clutch broke so easily, that is horrible engineering. Even if that was a "fake" marshal, that is no excuse for bad engineering. The clutch should be able to handle starting with the hybrid, the engine, or either/or combination of.

Why? Because you say so? If that's not the way the car was designed to work why would they engineer another path? Should they all be designed to run safely with a flat in all gears in case they get stuck in 4th or 5th? It happened so I guess we must re-design the cars just in case.

[XtC24]

I think the problem is they simply do not give it 100 %.
I mean the budget. They try and try again to win Le Mans and WEC with, say 80 - 90 mln. budget.
Porsche/Audi gave it constanly 150+.

If you want to win this race and refuse to give it 110% of
what it takes, when you failed more than once, instead trying to make it cheap - this race will not "choose you".
There is no curse, they just do the same mistake over and over again.
This year they gave it three cars, and they were happy they can do it with the same budget as last year because they did not have to develop new car for 2018...
Apparently TMG understand it, but someone there is not able to convince the board to give them what it takes.

Vasselon said pre season, they will have to take risks to beat Porsche and was unhappy when they did not get more money than in 2016 for three cars.

Maybe the big goal is not to simply win it but to do it at half the cost that the others use.

[Lagunaseca_4life]

It's always the budget! Sure why not it's not your money but they must spend it the way you want it.what was audis budget in '15-'16,sure didn't give them the win.

And I don't understand why some people are obsessed with this Japanese pride thing again.most of the team is GERMAN and the driver that destroyed the 9 isn't Japanese either.what is your problem with Japanese culture and why do you always blame it when Toyota loses Le Mans?


Well goes to show all you who demanded Toyota run three cars since 2013.you can't win Le Mans just because you have three cars,Porsche only ran two,and got it done with one left running that also spent an hour or so replacing the mgu.

[Akrapovic]

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

It's always the budget! Sure why not it's not your money but they must spend it the way you want it.what was audis budget in '15-'16,sure didn't give them the win.

And I don't understand why some people are obsessed with this Japanese pride thing again.most of the team is GERMAN and the driver that destroyed the 9 isn't Japanese either.what is your problem with Japanese culture and why do you always blame it when Toyota loses Le Mans?


Well goes to show all you who demanded Toyota run three cars since 2013.you can't win Le Mans just because you have three cars,Porsche only ran two,and got it done with one left running that also spent an hour or so replacing the mgu.

I wouldn't say it's Japanese culture, but I do think it's Toyota culture. Like you I don't think it's related to nation. But Toyota in F1 was a bust, Toyota at Le Mans in the late 90s was a bust. The 1999 race was eerily similar too. Ultra fast, fragile and hard to work with. It seems to be how Toyota Le Mans cars go.

The culture within a company can shape many things, and Toyota always seem to come to the same answer each time, and have the same short comings each time.

[MANvsFOOD]

Originally Posted by XtC24

I think the problem is they simply do not give it 100 %.
I mean the budget. They try and try again to win Le Mans and WEC with, say 80 - 90 mln. budget.
Porsche/Audi gave it constanly 150+.

If you want to win this race and refuse to give it 110% of
what it takes, when you failed more than once, instead trying to make it cheap - this race will not "choose you".
There is no curse, they just do the same mistake over and over again.
This year they gave it three cars, and they were happy they can do it with the same budget as last year because they did not have to develop new car for 2018...
Apparently TMG understand it, but someone there is not able to convince the board to give them what it takes.

Vasselon said pre season, they will have to take risks to beat Porsche and was unhappy when they did not get more money than in 2016 for three cars.

Maybe the big goal is not to simply win it but to do it at half the cost that the others use.

I can't say I agree with blaming it on the budget. Toyota's F1 budget was more than $300 million per season and that didn't get them anywhere.

[XtC24]

Porsche ran 2 cars with bigger expenses than Toyota with 3.

If you give it a lot it does not guarantee succes.
It is just when you give it to little you have to make compromises.

[Gingers4Justice]

http://sportscar365.com/lemans/wec/d...ated-of-a-car/

Strange to come out with this 4 years into the current regulations...

[Akrapovic]

He's just having a strop because he can't win. Toyota want hybrids, Porsche want hybrids, Audi had no problem with hybrids, and Peugeot want hybrids. Nobody actually wants them to go, they just want them cheaper. Old Hugues is just in the huff he still didn't get the win after being favourite 2 years in a row.

If they fixed the car quicker, they'd have won and he'd declare hybrids the greatest thing since...the ORECA07.

[TF110]

It's not strange, it's the truth. Toyoda said that maybe the technology isn't ready to do such pace, and for 24hrs straight. He apologized for the drivers not being able to push flat out. I don't think many here would argue that they would take more hybrid or more electric over a simpler form of energy like more engine power. This is a slap in the face to the ACO's new rules imo. The thing is that it was mostly bad luck. The clutch issue was due to starting and restarting like Vasselon explained. That's one car down. Another car got hit by an lmp2 and the driver (close to what he did before) went too fast on a flat tire and ruined the rear end. That's two cars. The 8 car had an issue never seen before, the same issue that hit the winning Porsche. If Lapierre made it to the pits without further damaging the car, they win the race. If the #7 didn't follow directions from a 'fake' marshal, they win the race.

I think it's a little unfair to label Toyota as unreliable without noting that EVERY car in the hybrid class had reliability issues. It was definitely a race of attrition. And you can probably be sure that Toyota will work on serviceability of the front mgu without having to compromise the battery. That's what took them so much longer. They changed the battery which took another 30-45 minutes. That's at least 8 additional laps.

I'm ****ed off that they lost this race, especially in such fashion. But there's not much I can do about it except cheer them on for the rest of the WEC to see if they can take both world titles and hope next year is their year.

[Akrapovic]

The fake marshal was an Algarve Pro driver. Check the race thread for that one. No idea what he was doing, but it was a thumbs up he gave him. Absolutely bizarre. I imagine he'll be getting a massive arse kicking.

But then it does raise the point of why can the clutch not cope with a start? It puts the car at massive risk of being unable to rejoin after a spin, or if it loses hybrid power, which of course did happen. The Toyota is not any more unreliable than any other prototype, but they do have serious problems servicing it, and it raises some interesting engineering questions.

The tech might not be ready to do such a pace for 24 hours...but isn't that what Le Mans is? About pushing new technology, new cars, for limits? Isn't that exactly why the 24 hours was founded in the first place? We could just stick big block Chevy V8s that'll never break down (even in the event of a nuclear explosion at Arnage) in every car, but is that what we want? I thought we wanted new an exciting technology being pushed? The point is to make the tech ready, and when it has problems, fix it quickly. Porsche won purely because they fixed it quickly. And then again, the hybrid systems caused no retirements at all! We had a clutch failure, an engine failure, and a driver failure!

So some cars broke down. In previous years they didn't break down. If Lapierre drove slowly that statement wouldn't have been made and he'd be drunk partying right now. If they could repair the car faster, he'd be drunk again.

[chernaudi]

Saying that Hybrids should totally go bye-bye because you don't like them won't happen. That genie was let out of the bottle a long time ago, and he's probably not coming back.

As Akrapovic said, look at how things have been since 2011. When Audi were around, they wanted to run a hybrid, when Peugeot were around, they wanted to run a hybrid. Hell, Peugeot wanted to run one since 2008! All they got to do before the end of their program was build up a first gen 908 as a hybrid test bed, and build up their intended 2012 cars before they got mothballed.

Not to mention that Toyota wanted hybrids and Porsche wanted them. Peugeot reportedly want hybrids with concessions for reduced costs, but still want to run them. Hypothetically should Audi come back, they'll probably want a hybrid of some type if they can't go full EV. Should HPD or Honda themselves come in, they'd want one--their NSX road car is a hybrid supercar, so a hybrid LMP1 makes sense for them should they go that route.

I'll tell you that the ACO have done a lot of stuff wrong with the implementation of hybrids, but their execution of the concept aside, it's what a lot of people want. If there was true equivalence between different MJ categories, that would reduce costs or make the larger budgets somewhat less effective, which seems to be the hoped for aim of the 2020 rules.

IMO, the ACO screwed up a lot of things, but their execution of it shouldn't condemn the whole concept.

[chernaudi]

I do think that after this, Toyota and Porsche would be wise to invest in some testing at Sebring. Testing there in the heat and humidity on a nasty, bumpy track was influential in Audi and Peugeot's success over the years. If you're going to break something, it'll happen at Sebring, and better there in a test than at LM during race week.

We also have to remember, though it was a tire test, some examples of LMP2s tested at Sebring, and that along with the 12 Hour IMSA race probably gave the likes of Oreca, Onroak and Dallara valuable feed back on what they needed to do to get the durability for LM.

I do think that what Audi and Peugeot were doing with their 30 hour tests there over the years needs to be looked at by Toyota and Porsche. Especially given that if a competent team ran a decent LMP1 privateer car on the LM grid this year, we might not have had a LMP1 factory team car win this year.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

The fake marshal was an Algarve Pro driver. Check the race thread for that one. No idea what he was doing, but it was a thumbs up he gave him. Absolutely bizarre. I imagine he'll be getting a massive arse kicking.

But then it does raise the point of why can the clutch not cope with a start? It puts the car at massive risk of being unable to rejoin after a spin, or if it loses hybrid power, which of course did happen. The Toyota is not any more unreliable than any other prototype, but they do have serious problems servicing it, and it raises some interesting engineering questions.

The tech might not be ready to do such a pace for 24 hours...but isn't that what Le Mans is? About pushing new technology, new cars, for limits? Isn't that exactly why the 24 hours was founded in the first place? We could just stick big block Chevy V8s that'll never break down (even in the event of a nuclear explosion at Arnage) in every car, but is that what we want? I thought we wanted new an exciting technology being pushed? The point is to make the tech ready, and when it has problems, fix it quickly. Porsche won purely because they fixed it quickly. And then again, the hybrid systems caused no retirements at all! We had a clutch failure, an engine failure, and a driver failure!

So some cars broke down. In previous years they didn't break down. If Lapierre drove slowly that statement wouldn't have been made and he'd be drunk partying right now. If they could repair the car faster, he'd be drunk again.

But that would still equal 4 out of 5 cars having issues. So the statement would still be made imo. Did Porsche change the battery on the #2 or just the mgu? Because the #8 did both. Vasselon said the clutch went through more than one phase of starting and stopping

“There has been, as you can imagine, some confusion. Start, stop, start, stop.

“So he had done several restarts with the clutch and the combustion engine… and burned the clutch because he has been thrown into a situation which should not exist.”

The clutch should start with the hybrid system, looks like that integration cost them. That's a hybrid problem. Same with the #8. The front MGU failure. That's a hybrid problem. They didn't cause a total failure because they were able to be repaired. That's not the same as saying they caused no retirements, but they may as well have.

I know that in the original R18 E-Tron, the hybrid being engaged wasn't even necessary for the car to run at basically the same pace. Now it seems the systems are all integrated and if something on the hybrid side fails, the car limps. It can also help as seen by the cars driving on electric power alone. But it wasn't enough to get the car back to the pits.

[Coldasice]

Originally Posted by broadrun96

Why? Because you say so? If that's not the way the car was designed to work why would they engineer another path? Should they all be designed to run safely with a flat in all gears in case they get stuck in 4th or 5th? It happened so I guess we must re-design the cars just in case.

Why? Umm because results matter? Because wins matter? Why else participate in Le Mans at all? If that's not the way the car was designed to work, it's poor engineering in my opinion.

You can ignore my opinion or not, but RESULTS speak for themselves. Interesting how the clutch on the Porsche car was able to handle multiple engagements/disengagements without falling apart.

Two can play at this game. Let me use your own perspective. Should a single punctured tire destroy the recovery system and engine oil cooler, thus leading to the loss of the gas engine and the gearbox as well? In other words, should a single punctured tire destroy practically the entire drivetrain? This is exactly like the TS020 all over again. On that machine, a single punctured tire was enough to destroy almost the entire car. Would a single punctured tire destroy the entire drivetrain on the Porsche? Or if this happened in previous years, on an Audi? I highly doubt that. As far as I can recall, Porsche and Audi in past years had punctures, and as far as I remember they did not destroy entire drivetrains leading to terminal failure of the car.

So no, nothing is "because I say so". Again feel free to ignore me. Toyota is also certainly free to keep building their cars the same way. Results speak for themselves though. Toyota keeps losing, and Audi in the past and now Porsche keep winning in LMP1.

Clearly, whatever Audi in the past did and now Porsche are doing WORKS. The way they build their cars, and the way they manage the race works, because it has provided results in the form of race wins at Le Mans.

Originally Posted by XtC24

I think the problem is they simply do not give it 100 %.
I mean the budget. They try and try again to win Le Mans and WEC with, say 80 - 90 mln. budget.
Porsche/Audi gave it constanly 150+.

If you want to win this race and refuse to give it 110% of
what it takes, when you failed more than once, instead trying to make it cheap - this race will not "choose you".
There is no curse, they just do the same mistake over and over again.
This year they gave it three cars, and they were happy they can do it with the same budget as last year because they did not have to develop new car for 2018...
Apparently TMG understand it, but someone there is not able to convince the board to give them what it takes.

Vasselon said pre season, they will have to take risks to beat Porsche and was unhappy when they did not get more money than in 2016 for three cars.

Maybe the big goal is not to simply win it but to do it at half the cost that the others use.

Agreed 100%. Very well said.

Originally Posted by Lagunaseca_4life

Well goes to show all you who demanded Toyota run three cars since 2013.you can't win Le Mans just because you have three cars,Porsche only ran two,and got it done with one left running that also spent an hour or so replacing the mgu.

Most of the reasonable comments that I saw wanting Toyota to run 3 cars also mentioned that Toyota needed to run 3 GOOD cars. Toyota this year had 3 fast, fragile, and poorly serviceable cars. If they had run two cars this year, it would have been even worse. But to run 3 cars that are flawed is no good either.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I wouldn't say it's Japanese culture, but I do think it's Toyota culture. Like you I don't think it's related to nation. But Toyota in F1 was a bust, Toyota at Le Mans in the late 90s was a bust. The 1999 race was eerily similar too. Ultra fast, fragile and hard to work with. It seems to be how Toyota Le Mans cars go.

The culture within a company can shape many things, and Toyota always seem to come to the same answer each time, and have the same short comings each time.

Exactly, well said. Funny how with Toyota's WRC wins and championships, there was no TMG involvement. With Toyota's class wins at the Nurburgring 24 Hours, as I understand it TMG had minimal involvement. In Toyota's numerous wins at the Baja 1000, 24 hours of Daytona, and numerous Dakar Rally wins...all had no TMG involvement. Hmmm I wonder if there is some sort of pattern here?

The ONLY race programs TMG has had direct involvement in was F1 (which yielded no wins, only embarrassment), and now (along with Oreca) their involvement in the current WEC program, which admittedly has yielded wins and at least a championship, but no Le Mans wins.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

He's just having a strop because he can't win. Toyota want hybrids, Porsche want hybrids, Audi had no problem with hybrids, and Peugeot want hybrids. Nobody actually wants them to go, they just want them cheaper. Old Hugues is just in the huff he still didn't get the win after being favourite 2 years in a row.

If they fixed the car quicker, they'd have won and he'd declare hybrids the greatest thing since...the ORECA07.

Agreed. Also I think there is more going on here behind the scenes. Perhaps he could be frustrated with TMG and Toyota leaders in Japan. Maybe he doesn't agree with some of the direction and strategy of the cars and team, who knows.

Originally Posted by TF110

It's not strange, it's the truth. Toyoda said that maybe the technology isn't ready to do such pace, and for 24hrs straight. He apologized for the drivers not being able to push flat out. I don't think many here would argue that they would take more hybrid or more electric over a simpler form of energy like more engine power. This is a slap in the face to the ACO's new rules imo. The thing is that it was mostly bad luck. The clutch issue was due to starting and restarting like Vasselon explained. That's one car down. Another car got hit by an lmp2 and the driver (close to what he did before) went too fast on a flat tire and ruined the rear end. That's two cars. The 8 car had an issue never seen before, the same issue that hit the winning Porsche. If Lapierre made it to the pits without further damaging the car, they win the race. If the #7 didn't follow directions from a 'fake' marshal, they win the race.

I think it's a little unfair to label Toyota as unreliable without noting that EVERY car in the hybrid class had reliability issues. It was definitely a race of attrition. And you can probably be sure that Toyota will work on serviceability of the front mgu without having to compromise the battery. That's what took them so much longer. They changed the battery which took another 30-45 minutes. That's at least 8 additional laps.

I'm ****ed off that they lost this race, especially in such fashion. But there's not much I can do about it except cheer them on for the rest of the WEC to see if they can take both world titles and hope next year is their year.

That's ridiculous in my opinion. So after 4 YEARS of WEC participation with LMP1 hybrid cars, Toyota only suddenly now decides that hybrid technology is not ready for Le Mans? That's a load of bull to me. Before Toyota entered the WEC, for years they spend a lot of time developing the tech and preparing it for Le Mans. They field tested hybrid tech in other 24 hour races before entering the WEC.

I'm surprised to see Akio Toyoda making these comments. It just sounds like sour grapes to me because they lost YET AGAIN.

Why aren't we seeing such critical comments from Porsche, the race winners?

Also regarding the battery, why did it take so long to change? Based on Toyota's comments, they did not change the MGU and battery simultaneously. Sounds like both were changed asynchronously, as the battery change extended the #8's stay in the garage, per Toyota's comments. To me this once again points to poor serviceability of the car.

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

The fake marshal was an Algarve Pro driver. Check the race thread for that one. No idea what he was doing, but it was a thumbs up he gave him. Absolutely bizarre. I imagine he'll be getting a massive arse kicking.

But then it does raise the point of why can the clutch not cope with a start? It puts the car at massive risk of being unable to rejoin after a spin, or if it loses hybrid power, which of course did happen. The Toyota is not any more unreliable than any other prototype, but they do have serious problems servicing it, and it raises some interesting engineering questions.

The tech might not be ready to do such a pace for 24 hours...but isn't that what Le Mans is? About pushing new technology, new cars, for limits? Isn't that exactly why the 24 hours was founded in the first place? We could just stick big block Chevy V8s that'll never break down (even in the event of a nuclear explosion at Arnage) in every car, but is that what we want? I thought we wanted new an exciting technology being pushed? The point is to make the tech ready, and when it has problems, fix it quickly. Porsche won purely because they fixed it quickly. And then again, the hybrid systems caused no retirements at all! We had a clutch failure, an engine failure, and a driver failure!

So some cars broke down. In previous years they didn't break down. If Lapierre drove slowly that statement wouldn't have been made and he'd be drunk partying right now. If they could repair the car faster, he'd be drunk again.

Exactly!

LMP1 cars are prototype cars. The very DEFINITION and purpose of the class is to run prototype technology. Prototype technology means pushing the limit. Fielding an LMP1 car means, by definition, to be pushing the limits.

Originally Posted by chernaudi

I do think that after this, Toyota and Porsche would be wise to invest in some testing at Sebring. Testing there in the heat and humidity on a nasty, bumpy track was influential in Audi and Peugeot's success over the years. If you're going to break something, it'll happen at Sebring, and better there in a test than at LM during race week.

We also have to remember, though it was a tire test, some examples of LMP2s tested at Sebring, and that along with the 12 Hour IMSA race probably gave the likes of Oreca, Onroak and Dallara valuable feed back on what they needed to do to get the durability for LM.

I do think that what Audi and Peugeot were doing with their 30 hour tests there over the years needs to be looked at by Toyota and Porsche. Especially given that if a competent team ran a decent LMP1 privateer car on the LM grid this year, we might not have had a LMP1 factory team car win this year.

It has always blown my mind why Toyota has never implemented regular testing at Sebring.

I give huge respect to Audi and Peugeot for testing at Sebring so often.

[Akrapovic]

4 out of 5 cars having issues was the norm from about 1923 through till 2010. It's a very recent development that we expect, actually demand, 100% reliability for 24 hours. The name of the game has always been about turning a car around quickly. Also remember that the #1, #7 and #9 had their problems at turn 1, the worst possible place. Had those incidents happened in the second half of the lap, they'd have all recovered to the pits, and most likely been repaired. We were very close to having 4 out of 5 cars finish - the Porsche would probably be the only terminal failure out of them, and Lapierre could've brought it back.

Porsche did not change the battery on the #2, just the MGU. But it's not like Toyota have to do things consecutively. You don't change the MGU, then when it's done change the battery. Toyota had the windscreen and dash out of the car and a mechanic head first in the cockpit at one point, so they most definitely had a harder time of it, regardless of extra work they had to do.

I don't understand the problem with the clutch. The car sat at the end of the pit lane, and then left the pits when an Algarve driver decided to be a moron. So did it do that start on electrical power or mechanical power? Because the way Toyota word that is the car did several starts with the clutch, so it did it on mechanical power. So why couldn't the clutch cope with that? Safety Cars are common at Le Mans, so if the procedure requires a mechanical clutch, can it only cope with 1 start? If it had a safety car again later, would it have minced itself on that start?

Toyota say this situation should not exist, but it's very easy to think of a situation where you'll need the clutch a couple of times in short succession. A spin, avoiding another car, a safety car, an issue in the pits, an issue with the hybrid. It does not seem like a very well thought out system, and it cost them the win. That's not a hybrid problem, that's a mechanical problem with the up and down and roundy roundy bits - building it very frail and hoping you don't need to use it. It's similar to how Panoz did the starter motor in the DP01. It was there...but it was so small it never worked. The engine failure for the #1 was a good old fashioned engine failure, complete with low oil pressure, straight from the 80s.

There were 2 mechanical failures, and 2 hybrid failures. The hybrid ones were fixed, the mechanical ones were not. Partially because the location they happened was too far to recover to the pits.

[chernaudi]

And that's probably why Audi didn't put their eggs into one basket with the 2012-13 and 2014-15 cars with the hybrid and relied more on engine power than hybrid. Because they at least had reliable engines and with fewer MJ, not only is the hybrid system less taxed, but the performance of the car is less dependent on them.

Granted, you can interpret this as me being an Audi fan and still PO'd about them leaving, but if the ACO took a much more moderate approach to hybrids, we'd probably have more reliable cars that are cheaper and just as fast.

[Coldasice]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

And that's probably why Audi didn't put their eggs into one basket with the 2012-13 and 2014-15 cars with the hybrid and relied more on engine power than hybrid. Because they at least had reliable engines and with fewer MJ, not only is the hybrid system less taxed, but the performance of the car is less dependent on them.

Granted, you can interpret this as me being an Audi fan and still PO'd about them leaving, but if the ACO took a much more moderate approach to hybrids, we'd probably have more reliable cars that are cheaper and just as fast.

I give huge respect to Audi for what they accomplished in LMP1. They knew what it took to win Le Mans, and they managed their cars extremely well.

[ederss7]

Originally Posted by TF110

It's not strange, it's the truth. Toyoda said that maybe the technology isn't ready to do such pace, and for 24hrs straight. He apologized for the drivers not being able to push flat out. I don't think many here would argue that they would take more hybrid or more electric over a simpler form of energy like more engine power. This is a slap in the face to the ACO's new rules imo. The thing is that it was mostly bad luck. The clutch issue was due to starting and restarting like Vasselon explained. That's one car down. Another car got hit by an lmp2 and the driver (close to what he did before) went too fast on a flat tire and ruined the rear end. That's two cars. The 8 car had an issue never seen before, the same issue that hit the winning Porsche. If Lapierre made it to the pits without further damaging the car, they win the race. If the #7 didn't follow directions from a 'fake' marshal, they win the race.

I think it's a little unfair to label Toyota as unreliable without noting that EVERY car in the hybrid class had reliability issues. It was definitely a race of attrition. And you can probably be sure that Toyota will work on serviceability of the front mgu without having to compromise the battery. That's what took them so much longer. They changed the battery which took another 30-45 minutes. That's at least 8 additional laps.

Mostly bad luck? It seems that Toyota's problems are always bad luck. Just a few examples: in 2008 Marco Werner spun his R10 at the Ford Chicanes and broke his clutch when restarting the car. Guess what happened? He slowly lapped around the whole circuit and Audi fixed the clutch; 2014: Audi #1 stops during the night on the Mulsanne straight with injections issues. What happened? They brought the car back to the pits and fixed it. Then the same car stopped again with turbo failure. What happened? They managed to fix it again. The result? Audi 1-2 ; 2016: both Audis have several issues, one of them stopping on track and having to crawl slowly around the whole circuit. What happened? Both cars finished, one of them on the podium.
What happens when Toyota have problems? They either break down completely or spend two hours fixing it.

Yes, Toyota have always been unlucky. The others have always been lucky.

[supermario21]

The mentality Audi had of building the cars to be easily fixed WHEN it broke was probably the most underrated aspect of the program.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Coldasice

Exactly, well said. Funny how with Toyota's WRC wins and championships, there was no TMG involvement. With Toyota's class wins at the Nurburgring 24 Hours, as I understand it TMG had minimal involvement. In Toyota's numerous wins at the Baja 1000, 24 hours of Daytona, and numerous Dakar Rally wins...all had no TMG involvement. Hmmm I wonder if there is some sort of pattern here?

The ONLY race programs TMG has had direct involvement in was F1 (which yielded no wins, only embarrassment), and now (along with Oreca) their involvement in the current WEC program, which admittedly has yielded wins and at least a championship, but no Le Mans wins.

TTE (Toyota Team Europe) transformed into TMG, which it is exactly what ran the rally program in the 1990s. (The current WRC car comes from different places. Engine from TMG, aero is developed in UK by some unnamed company and car is built in Tommi Makinen's tiny shop in Finland.)

[Coldasice]

Originally Posted by deggis

TTE (Toyota Team Europe) transformed into TMG, which it is exactly what ran the rally program in the 1990s. (The current WRC car comes from different places. Engine from TMG, aero is developed in UK by some unnamed company and car is built in Tommi Makinen's tiny shop in Finland.)

Yes correct. My point was that most of the ex-TTE staff, who were there when TMG first started did not all stay. Also even with the staff that stayed, the staff makeup changed as Toyota hired various F1 people when the F1 program started. Key people like Ove Andersson either retired or left TMG as the F1 project went full speed ahead. People like Pascal Vasselon were hired, who has a key position at TMG now. Also people like Rob Leupen, who was hired in the mid 1990s just as TTE was transforming into TMG. Rob Leupen like Vasselon is also now a key staff member at TMG and the WEC program.

Currently I believe there are very few actual TTE employees still working at TMG. If there were many, then I'm sure Tommi Makinen would be much more willing to work closely with TMG on the WRC program. The rumor (which I believe) that Tommi Makinen wanted TMG to have as little to do with the WRC car as possible makes sense if very few original TTE members were left at TMG now. Tommi Makinen I'm sure would have very little interest in working with mostly F1 or ex-F1 people on a WRC program.

[deggis]

Originally Posted by Coldasice

Currently I believe there are very few actual TTE employees still working at TMG. If there were many, then I'm sure Tommi Makinen would be much more willing to work closely with TMG on the WRC program. The rumor (which I believe) that Tommi Makinen wanted TMG to have as little to do with the WRC car as possible makes sense if very few original TTE members were left at TMG now. Tommi Makinen I'm sure would have very little interest in working with mostly F1 or ex-F1 people on a WRC program.

I remember he had a requirement and that was that he gets to do this in his own shop and wanted to use his own existing rally team as the base (the location also makes sense for testing especially with WRC's testing rules). What was weird is that TMG was doing a WRC car based on the lower category R5 Yaris (altough WRC '17 rules weren't even clear at that point), and Makinen was only rumored for the team principal role. Then at some point it became a completely new project and TMG was left only to do the engine.

[knighty]

I think Toyota were unlucky wuith the punctures, but they also need to stand back and look at themselves.

I have to also say, what on earth does Huges De Chunac do for TMG?.......other than just stand there with 1 finger on his lip?

For a flailing tyre to sever a hydraulic line, this is easy to predict at the design stage of a car, hence I feel the hydraulic lines should have been more carefully routed and engineered, then it could have made it back to the pits for repairs

Yes the servicability of the KERS units or anything mechanical is key, but I fear they were stuck with trying to achieve the minimum weight versus serviceability, as all the extra brackets and clamps will weigh more.

I am very reliably told by people within Toyota-TMG Cologne that the 2016 failure was due to the boost pipe being made from minimal layers of carbon, as they were trying to hit the minimum weight target, to the point that major body panels were also re-made with minimal carbon layers, whereby you could easily depress the bodywork by hand........but really LeMans is not Monaco, so carrying an extra 5-10Kg is worth it for a 24Hr endurance race.......again it seems F1 principles are clouding a decent LPM1 team........serviceability is more important than minimum weight

[chernaudi]

Why do we think that even against Peugeot, Toyota and even Porsche in '14 that Audi won LM so many times, and why did Porsche win the last couple of years? You build a car to be as bullet proof as possible, but you still need to plan on the unexpected, such as freak failures or accidents.

Audi had that quick change rear end on the R8, a gearbox that could be taken apart and rebuilt in reportedly as little as 5 minutes on the R10 and R15. Porsche have a (relatively) quick change MGU, and I think that Audi R18 type platypus nose helped in that regard, unlike Toyota's bullet/raven's beak/plague doctor's mask nose.

Granted, Toyota will probably have a great car for the remaining sprint races, but as has been mentioned, it seems like--maybe due to budget, maybe just simply due to design--they've at times sacrificed too much durability for the sake of performance.

[roderick]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Why do we think that even against Peugeot, Toyota and even Porsche in '14 that Audi won LM so many times, and why did Porsche win the last couple of years? You build a car to be as bullet proof as possible, but you still need to plan on the unexpected, such as freak failures or accidents.

Audi had that quick change rear end on the R8, a gearbox that could be taken apart and rebuilt in reportedly as little as 5 minutes on the R10 and R15. Porsche have a (relatively) quick change MGU, and I think that Audi R18 type platypus nose helped in that regard, unlike Toyota's bullet/raven's beak/plague doctor's mask nose.

Granted, Toyota will probably have a great car for the remaining sprint races, but as has been mentioned, it seems like--maybe due to budget, maybe just simply due to design--they've at times sacrificed too much durability for the sake of performance.

I agree, in regards with being bullet proof to win Lemans. but given how they managed to get back in the race with that much damage at Silverstone does say this time was little unlucky...
I'm sure they had some sort of protection against puncture. I believe Nico pushed the car too much after the puncture...