[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[Hiro]

Originally Posted by cokata

yes the Audi reached that speed at Spa because it boosted. On ICE power alone Audi were doing ~310kph (a little better than what they were doing in 2015, but in 2015 they did not boost coming out of Eau Rouge, this year they did). Toyota were doing 300 on ICE power.

According to the onboard, Toyota surely boosted at Eau Rorge to reach 300km/h this year.

[TF110]

Little interview with Buemi here http://www.24h-lemans.com/en/news/se...746_24940.html. They're really upbeat about their LM chances I'd say.

Originally Posted by carbon_titanium

even at le mans, achieve the best top speed means everything but nothing... in 2011, 908 was able to pass easily 340km/h, R18 barely could hit 330km/h but because of more downforce, audi's were faster in porsche sector and have been the fastest cars all the week-end long.
In 2012, ts030 was able to hit 330km/h, R18 e-tron struggled to get close to 320km/h... result? both R18 e-tron were faster than ts030 because of better aero.
That's what I mean. Is useless to project a car with an insane top speed and not much more... a lightning through the mulsanne straight and a turtle in porsche sector... not the best deal to me.

BTW also audi and porsche will be able to pass 340km/h on straight without draft, toyota maybe will get a better top speed and because of lower drag, will be able to keep for a while that speed also when the hybrid boost will finish.

And no, toyota definitively hasn't the same aero focus of rivals. Audi and Porsche will use 3 different bodyworks for the season; very likely toyota aero concept is this:

TS050 + diveplanes and more loaded rear wing = HD package
TS050 - diveplanes and lower rear wing = LD package

You need to check again. Much more to it than simple wing and diveplane changes.

Check the front fender length, the aero under the headlights, the rear wing endplates and the air ducting from the rear bodywork. All different-

side view from the Prologue


rear view from Spa test

[Spyderman]

As I have said before: For me Toyota is the firm favorite for Le Mans. I think they will be the quickest car and if they manage to keep out of trouble, they stand a very good chance of winning this.
They have done the right thing: Their focus is and has been only on Le Mans.

[cokata]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

As I have said before: For me Toyota is the firm favorite for Le Mans. I think they will be the quickest car and if they manage to keep out of trouble, they stand a very good chance of winning this.
They have done the right thing: Their focus is and has been only on Le Mans.

I don't think so man. Porsche seem to have made a fantastic LD kit. They were a little quicker than Toyota in S1 and S3 and a lot quicker in S2 at Spa. Now we saw that this year there was poor grip Spa, so maybe that played into it as well, but it seems to me that Porsches LM kit has an amazing lift-to-drag ratio. Also can never count Audi out. It should be really interesting.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by cokata

I don't think so man. Porsche seem to have made a fantastic LD kit. They were a little quicker than Toyota in S1 and S3 and a lot quicker in S2 at Spa. Now we saw that this year there was poor grip Spa, so maybe that played into it as well, but it seems to me that Porsches LM kit has an amazing lift-to-drag ratio. Also can never count Audi out. It should be really interesting.

Fair enough. My thinking is as follows:
Porsche's advantage lies primarily in their hybrid system. With the 300Kw cap for the EMU, that advantage gets "contained". This shifts their reliance more to the very small engine where they are at less than an advantage. To add to that, they do not have a new car ( which is a double edged sword) and they have so far this year , lacked luck.
Audi will (as usual) be very fast (and aggressive), but I have some qualms about their reliability.

[sssssssss]

why would audi's reliability be any worse than toyota's (or porsche's)? none of the cars has proved trouble-free performance yet. if anything, audi no8 came the closest to that, at spa, so far. they also won both races of the championship on track, thus far.

[GasperG]

It's nice to read different views, but there is just not enough information even to judge which car will be more DF oriented and which less DF.

Have we seen anything even remotely like LM package from Porsche and Audi?

Toyota shoved LM package at Paul Ricard and we have images from SPA test, that is all. Both Audi and Porsche were running interm or HD packages at Paul Ricard and SPA.

We can't have slightest idea how Toyota will cope with rivals and also judging from the images it's impossible to say what is with underbody aero, I heard it can make big impact on the total package.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

why would audi's reliability be any worse than toyota's (or porsche's)? none of the cars has proved trouble-free performance yet. if anything, audi no8 came the closest to that, at spa, so far..

Well not really. The # 1 Porsche had an accident at Silverstone and had to change a front gearbox caused by 2 consecutive punctures at Spa . Not really a reliability issue.

Originally Posted by sssssssss

they also won both races of the championship on track, thus far.

...but only because of the #1 misfortunes.

[sssssssss]

the 2 consecutive punctures can be a sign of the car being too hard on the tires. low LM downforce can make things even worse in that respect. the porsches also had several problems anyway and while that's definitely not the way to win le mans, i still kinda think they are favorites, given they've won last year and they're so far the fastest out of 3 pretty unreliable cars this year.

also, le mans is usually won because of other cars' misfortunes and there seems to be plenty of them for everyone, so that doesn't make audi's spa victory (or silverstone/spa wins on track) less legitimate.

but given we're on the toyota thread, what i was trying to say was i didn't quite get why would toyota be (firm!) favorite in any way, they were slower than porsche and audi at silverstone, slower than porsche and ultimately less reliable than both audi and porsche at spa.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

the 2 consecutive punctures can be a sign of the car being too hard on the tires. low LM downforce can make things even worse in that respect. the porsches also had several problems anyway and while that's definitely not the way to win le mans, i still kinda think they are favorites, given they've won last year and they're so far the fastest out of 3 pretty unreliable cars this year..

No - I think it was caused by some carbon fiber shards that were left on track from another incident.

Originally Posted by sssssssss

also, le mans is usually won because of other cars' misfortunes and there seems to be plenty of them for everyone, so that doesn't make audi's spa victory (or silverstone/spa wins on track) less legitimate...

You will note that I never questioned the legitimacy of Audi's race win at Spa. The Silverstone win was done with a extra-legal car, so we don't really know the extent of the benefit they gained from having a car that was beyond the scope of regulation. My point is that the wins at Silverstone and Spa are really quite irrelevant in relation to Le Mans. Of course Audi can win (20016 Le Mans). I just give Toyota a better chance.

Originally Posted by sssssssss

but given we're on the toyota thread, what i was trying to say was i didn't quite get why would toyota be (firm!) favorite in any way, they were slower than porsche and audi at silverstone, slower than porsche and ultimately less reliable than both audi and porsche at spa.

Because Toyota has been concentrating on Le Mans. They also showed a lot of speed, and had they not run into trouble at Spa, they may have very well won that one. Anyway - My money is on Toyota but my heart is always with Porsche.

[chernaudi]

The Porsche front gearbox issue may or may not have been caused by the punctures, but when you consider that they're been rumored to be mulling going back to some of the 2015 parts for their hybrid system because they're not 100% satisfied with their 2016 spec, that means that they're looking at reliability vs outright performance.

For Toyota, the engine issues at Spa are a bit more concerning, since we (at least) don't know what the exact nature of the #5's engine failure was, let alone what caused it. And Toyota had no additional pre-LM endurance testing planned as far as on track testing goes.

That Audi had no mechanical problems or problems with their hybrid system (which caused them a lot of problems, especially early in testing) would seem, at least from the outside looking in, that they're headed in the right direction reliability wise. However, I'm a bit skeptical until I hear that they've done over a LM's distance in testing without major issues, which we have yet to hear from a reliable source. Also, I'm a bit less worried but still a bit skeptical on them getting the handling 100% right for the LM package since they had persistent handling problems all weekend at Spa that they never fully resolved during the weekend.

We won't know much until LM test day. But even that's a shot in the dark, due to everyone having their own programs and plans.

[TF110]

We dont need to know the cause, we want to. Toyota does need to know and it seems they do. Ant Davidson tweeted they had a successful test at Spa in prep for LM.

[GT6]

Originally Posted by TF110

We dont need to know the cause, we want to. Toyota does need to know and it seems they do. Ant Davidson tweeted they had a successful test at Spa in prep for LM.

What with both cars had problems unless they fixed those problems and resolved all the issues and to be honest they had said these sort of things before spa and we all know what happened there, i want toyota to do well rather than keep saying it is and then experiencing problems later

[TF110]

They said they had no issues in 20k+ km of testing. Not much bragging from them. Spa caused them an issue in or around 3 hours. They went back there the past 2 days. Seems everything went good? Maybe the issue is resolved.

[roderick]

Originally Posted by TF110

They said they had no issues in 20k+ km of testing. Not much bragging from them. Spa caused them an issue in or around 3 hours. They went back there the past 2 days. Seems everything went good? Maybe the issue is resolved.

Past 2 days of Spa has been just a shake down so not sure if they've solved anything yet

[TF110]

Shakedown? Don't think so. The LM spec car had it's first run/ shakedown at the Prologue in March. This was a LM test.

[Spyderman]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The Porsche front gearbox issue may or may not have been caused by the punctures, but when you consider that they're been rumored to be mulling going back to some of the 2015 parts for their hybrid system because they're not 100% satisfied with their 2016 spec, that means that they're looking at reliability vs outright performance.

For Toyota, the engine issues at Spa are a bit more concerning, since we (at least) don't know what the exact nature of the #5's engine failure was, let alone what caused it. And Toyota had no additional pre-LM endurance testing planned as far as on track testing goes.

That Audi had no mechanical problems or problems with their hybrid system (which caused them a lot of problems, especially early in testing) would seem, at least from the outside looking in, that they're headed in the right direction reliability wise. However, I'm a bit skeptical until I hear that they've done over a LM's distance in testing without major issues, which we have yet to hear from a reliable source. Also, I'm a bit less worried but still a bit skeptical on them getting the handling 100% right for the LM package since they had persistent handling problems all weekend at Spa that they never fully resolved during the weekend.

We won't know much until LM test day. But even that's a shot in the dark, due to everyone having their own programs and plans.

I don't want to labor the point too much (especially as this is the Toyota thread) but Porsche confirmed that the gearbox damaged was caused by the difference in rotation speed between the two front wheels over such a long distance.
I have not been able to confirm anything about the battery issue and according to an article in e-Racing Magazine, Porsche are very happy with their 2016 battery. Furthermore, I suspect that that rumor was started because of the issues with the #2 car. Porsche have never gotten to the bottom of that, and as a result the # 2 has a new chassis/car.
Having said all that, It is obvious that none of the three makes are free from having issues or running into trouble. I would say the odds of one of the cars from any of the three teams running into trouble (of some kind) is close to 100%.
I suspect that the winner this year (as in any other year) will be the car that has the least (or no)trouble and has the speed to catch up or runaway from the rest of the field.

[GasperG]

Originally Posted by TF110

They said they had no issues in 20k+ km of testing. Not much bragging from them. Spa caused them an issue in or around 3 hours. They went back there the past 2 days. Seems everything went good? Maybe the issue is resolved.

Another question, do we know if the engine that failed did all this testing kilometers? It may be that a fresh engine for LeMans is all they need to resolve "SPA issue". Maybe this is the reason why they didn't make long distance test at SPA, they know the engine may fail at some ten thousand+ km, why risk it.

How many engines are allowed by the rules? What changes can you make on engine during the season?

My guess is they will just run with no engine modification, they know how much abuse the engine can take and it's good enough.

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by Spyderman

Because Toyota has been concentrating on Le Mans. They also showed a lot of speed, and had they not run into trouble at Spa, they may have very well won that one.

many would have won races, including le mans, had they not run into problems. that really doesn't mean anything. toyota showed good speed at spa, but they were still significantly slower than porsche. also, i personally think all the manufacturers have been concentrating on le mans, every season, really. look at audi in 2014: they were almost not competitive on most tracks, yet they won le mans and also had the fastest lap of the race there.

Originally Posted by GasperG

How many engines are allowed by the rules? What changes can you make on engine during the season?

for lmp1 hybrid, engine use is limited to 5 engines for the complete season (all race events) per car entered.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by sssssssss

many would have won races, including le mans, had they not run into problems. that really doesn't mean anything. toyota showed good speed at spa, but they were still significantly slower than porsche. also, i personally think all the manufacturers have been concentrating on le mans, every season, really. look at audi in 2014: they were almost not competitive on most tracks, yet they won le mans and also had the fastest lap of the race there.



for lmp1 hybrid, engine use is limited to 5 engines for the complete season (all race events) per car entered.

They were slower than Porsche in qualifying where the harder tires aren't as usefull. Over the course of the race they were just as fast, (maybe not on one lap pace) and faster.

[sssssssss]

they were slower than porsche in race pace as well. if you look through the race lap analysis, it's quite obvious that the full-working porsche has better lap times than any of the toyotas. maybe they weren't as consistent as they expected to be, but in terms of pure speed, the difference is quite clear. and it gets that more obvious in absolute pace (fastest lap and ideal lap, where the porsche is almost 1.5 seconds faster than any of the toyotas).

[Hiro]

At spa, the gap between porsche 1 and toyota 5 when the first stint was finished was less than 10 seconds, which could be shorter if toyotas had not been blocked by audies in the first half of the 1st stint. #1 was clearly slower than #5 in the later half of the 1st stint, so i think #1 would have been little faster than or even with double-stinted #5 if they had completed their 2nd stint without puncture.

[TF110]

You're right, Hiro. Even with Buemi's double he was able to fight with the #1 for those few laps before it's puncture. The timing and scoring confirm the gap closed after Buemi passed the Audi's.

[Artur]

Well, I already gave my two cents regarding the Toyota's performance, at Spa, so I won't bother with repeating it. All I'm gonna say is that I'm loving all this Toyota hype especially because I have a good feeling that this thread will, once again, be filled with excuses after another LM...... so enjoy the hope while it lasts. At least that will be something in case Toyota doesn't finally win it.

As an Audi fan, I'm not expecting a good perfomance from them either. Let's see if the race at least turns out to be entertaining

[carbon_titanium]

Originally Posted by Artur

Well, I already gave my two cents regarding the Toyota's performance, at Spa, so I won't bother with repeating it. All I'm gonna say is that I'm loving all this Toyota hype especially because I have a good feeling that this thread will, once again, be filled with excuses after another LM...... so enjoy the hope while it lasts. At least that will be something in case Toyota doesn't finally win it.

As an Audi fan, I'm not expecting a good perfomance from them either. Let's see if the race at least turns out to be entertaining

*... toyota will win LM 24h!
and if they won't do it, is just because they are sandbagging.
It's the golden rule of this forum.