[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[TF110]

I think one of those three will get a full time race seat, possibly next year or 2018. Imo it'll be Beche or Lopez. I see Hirakawa in a third car if he proves himself. Should be interesting to watch unfold.

[Adam43]

A third car? Excellent, especially its Porsche and Audi maybe still only having two.

[Deleted]

Originally Posted by Adam43

A third car? Excellent, especially its Porsche and Audi maybe still only having two.

Yup
http://tentenths.com/forum/showpost....postcount=3892

[Adam43]

Well I never.

[kvenom]

Seems like there has been a quite a big shuffle within the team racing ops:

Mathieu Le Nail Race Engineer for the #2 has left for Audi
Jean-Philippe Peleprat Race Engineer for the #1 is taking a backseat role after Le Mans
Team race Engineer Juan Pablo Ramirez has also left.

The #5 sees ex JRM and Marc VDS man Rafal Pokora promoted from within the ranks to race engineer and ex Porsche man Mathieu Galoche will be in the chair after Le Mans for the #6

[Japanese Samurai]

Toyota Gazoo website reports Nakajima and Kobayashi interview.
They mention about special driving style needed for hybrid racing car.
http://toyotagazooracing.com/jp/wec/...interview.html

Special driving style for energy regeneration is needed in WEC.
In formula car driving, do the late and hard braking and change the direction at the corner.
However, the energy regeneration amount is insufficient by such a braking in hybrid racing car. You have to do more efficient braking and regenerate the energy.

[cokata]

On a pure KERS car like the Toyota and the Audi, braking efficiently is paramount for energy recovery. Locking should be brought down as much as possible, because once a wheel does lock you stop recovering energy from it.

[TF110]

With the 4-wheel kers (or two axle), braking is helped a lot. We've heard of the over-cooling of the brakes, so it seems like Toyota will again be very good in this area. They'll definitely step up the regeneration and storage is much better with the battery this year. If it's wet at Silverstone, I think they may have a big advantage. Last year at Fuji was a clear indication of that.

[chernaudi]

Or simply that rain is a great equalizer? At Fuji, both Audi and Toyota performed better than Porsche did early in the race. Both Audi and Toyota's cars seemed to have better grip and traction at Fuji in the early laps. In the rain, being down on power (engine or hybrid) isn't such a huge disadvantage.

[godlameroso]

I noticed that they do a lot of lift and coast from their onboards, they usually start decelerating 175 meters before the corner, using the brakes on only the last 70 or so meters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM38en67gJo

look here, particularly going into turn one.

I find it interesting in the sense that it's a car that gets laptime with an unconventional technique.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

Or simply that rain is a great equalizer? At Fuji, both Audi and Toyota performed better than Porsche did early in the race. Both Audi and Toyota's cars seemed to have better grip and traction at Fuji in the early laps. In the rain, being down on power (engine or hybrid) isn't such a huge disadvantage.

Rain isn't much of an equalizer when your car is at least 2+ seconds slower. Toyota have always been good in the wet because of the double kers (from 2014) 4wd.

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by godlameroso

I find it interesting in the sense that it's a car that gets laptime with an unconventional technique.

The small loss of time from coasting for about 100 m before braking is more than offset by the fact that recharging while coasting => extra boost and extra acceleration on corner exit. Powertrain works a bit counterintuitively, so the car has to be driven very differently.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Victor_RO

The small loss of time from coasting for about 100 m before braking is more than offset by the fact that recharging while coasting => extra boost and extra acceleration on corner exit. Powertrain works a bit counterintuitively, so the car has to be driven very differently.

Adding on to this already fine explanation, the best way to use the hybrid power is to get the average speed around the lap up (and therefore the lap time down). It's more efficient to use the energy where it would make the biggest difference - at low speeds where the resistance forces are lowest - than at top speed where it wouldn't have as big an effect.

Remember Red Bull's not-traction control from before the pre-2014 regs? It allowed them to have a higher average speed down the straights, despite their relatively low top-end speed.No hybrid involved, but the same principle for reducing lap time applies.

I'll put a quick plug for my signature here while I'm at it, as this is what it refers to...

[cokata]

The lifting and coasting is done so that they get within their energy allowance per lap. On coasting no power is recovered.

[TF110]

Yeah, I think there is. Thats why it's a braking assist.

[GasperG]

Coasting by definition means no braking of any kind, if they are regenerating, then you can not call it coasting

[TF110]

Here's their pr from the first day http://www.toyotahybridracing.com/si...-preparations/

[cokata]

Shocking performance. The 2015 car was more competitive in the rain

[kvenom]

Both cars having turbo issues, what on Earth happened?

[sonic]

From autosport article:

We had a significant hiccup in terms of the controls about which I can't go into detail," said Anthony Davidson, who ended up sixth with Kazuki Nakajima.

"We've never really run in the wet before with this car, so this shows how pushed for time we have been and how complex the car is."

[Deleted]

Not tested the car in the wet?

Maybe they should choose more northern hemisphere winter testing tracks instead of Portugal, Spain, southern France etc

[J Jay]

As the venerable Jason Statham would say,

<gravel voice>It always rains at Le Mans</gravel voice>

[bentley speed 8]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Maybe they should choose more northern hemisphere winter testing tracks instead of Portugal, Spain, southern France etc

Maybe testing with the snow at Spa like Porsche

[kvenom]

Stéphane Sarrazin: “We made some mistakes in the control systems and we didn’t get the normal performance from the powertrain. We are still learning our new car and these things can happen. It is the first time for us to drive the TS050 HYBRID in such conditions so we need to understand what happened in order to improve for the next time.”

Mike Conway: “I could already feel a problem leaving the pit lane; something wasn’t right. It just felt like we were completely underpowered all the way through the session, due to the settings we chose. I am not sure exactly what went wrong. It’s a different day tomorrow and it looks like being dry so hopefully we can have a good race and battle with the cars ahead of us.”

So they chose the wrong powertrain settings for the wet? Oh my...

[TF110]

Its not a big deal. As long as they learn what they did wrong, they can change. Hopefully the race shows they're right on it. As for not running/testing in the rain, that's news! Earlier this year they said that they had rain at one of their endurance tests.