[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[TF110]

Thinking of the "what-if" earlier and decided to do some math to see what Toyota could accomplish by letting their TS050 loose. They thought the comparisons to the 919 EVO would stack up well so lets go by when they did run the TS050's engine and hybrid 'unrestricted'- the 2018-2019 Super Season Prologue at Paul Ricard...

Toyota ran it's regular TS050 close to unrestricted last year during pre-season testing at the WEC Prologue. The timing is here- http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/ You go to the 2018-2019 season in the drop down menu and choose Paul Ricard. The top speeds are amazing. 347kmh for the Toyota vs the next best lmp1 at 339kmh. That was with their Le Mans/low downforce package. The high downforce package did ~316kmh, but it was the faster car around the lap. Let's say Toyota gained 5-6 seconds (1:38-1:32) just from allowing their car to run it's powertrain unleashed.

That's a 6.1% decrease in lap time. I took that and applied it to their best lap at a track the 919 EVO ran, Spa. Their best time in qualifying was a 1:53.6, taking away 6.1% of that equals >6.9 seconds. Round that up to 7 seconds off and you come up with a 1:46.6xx lap time at Spa which is about 5 seconds away from Porsche's previous lap record. Not too bad of a chance to match the 919 Evo imo.

It's something kinda pointless but it's already been done, so why not again?

[Aysedasi]

Without (I hope) being too facetious, I think you've answered your own question. Because it's pointless......

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Without (I hope) being too facetious, I think you've answered your own question. Because it's pointless......

I think the PR is probably the one thing that might be a plus for them. Maybe it wouldn't really help the WEC though because the car isn't running to the regulations and they are switching to hypercar anyway.

With the Porsche 919 Evo I thought it was a really cool project but rather wished they would use the funds to enter at least one car for a couple of WEC races and Le Mans. At least if Toyota does the same its not instead-of but more of a celebration of the outgoing car by letting it loose. I think that's what Porsche was doing too and even though we may not like it vs actual WEC/LM competition, it's still talked about and celebrated by automotive media.

[Akrapovic]

Seems like a complete waste of time. It’s a motorsport program. Let’s put that money towards motorsport programs. How about a proper works Toyota GT3 team? Rather than this weird Lexus setup? Or a GTE? Or a GT4? Or, well any racing car that’s racing.

[TF110]

I don't know about your thoughts but they're involved in a lot of racing already. Lmp1, WRC, Nascar, Super GT GT500, Super Formula, customer GT3 (Europe, USA, Japan) & GT4, VLN/N24, Dakar, South American Touring Car, Junior Formula, NHRA Drag Racing etc. Maybe the funds will be from what if anything is saved transitioning lmp1 to hypercar?

[Akrapovic]

There's customer GT3 programs and then there's real customer GT3 programs. Toyota is the biggest car company in the world. The GT3 car is *finally* not terrible. Let's get a whole bunch of them into Blancpain and IMSA and VLN. Not one customer per series. Let's get Audi and Mercedes levels of work on these cars. Let's get an M-Sport Bentley team in there (with less mistakes). I'd much rather the GT3 program is properly built out rather than another pointless LMP1 record contest. Oh and a lot more Toyota GT4s would be *awesome*.

[TF110]

I don't really like these quasi-factory GT3 teams. I know that there isn't many Lexus GT3's but it's the same with the Nissan and NSX. Seems like a team or two per continent (America, Europe and Asia). I also hope that they use the Lexus LC for GTE in the future.

[Akrapovic]

I’d like Honda and Nissan to expand the GT3 teams too. And Bentley. And yeah a GTE effort would be awesome too.

Basically, I’d rather see more racing Toyotas over a demonstration Toyota.

[chernaudi]

I too would rather see more racing cars. I mean, a lot of us tend to complain about the lack of factory/OEM efforts in LMP1, and now in GTE/GTLM. There's some justification to this, as well as point out a lack of entries, period. I'd argue that you can give the WEC some leeway because of their approx. 35 grid cap for most events outside of the LM24.

But what sports car racing really needs is variety. Even if it's variety for variety's sake. I know that this isn't exactly a full-on Toyota LMP1 discussion, but we do know that the TS050 will be obsolete due to rules changes soon. If TMG want to make a record breaker out of it, more power to them. But between stuff like that and the 919 Evo and one off/extremely limited production track day cars or tech demonstrators, there's enough of those to make one's head spin.

I don't even care if it's prototypes or GT cars, I'd like to see healthy fields in all classes, be it WEC or IMSA.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

I’d like Honda and Nissan to expand the GT3 teams too. And Bentley. And yeah a GTE effort would be awesome too.

Basically, I’d rather see more racing Toyotas over a demonstration Toyota.

I agree, but I don't think it's one or the other. That was my problem with the Porsche 919. There's plenty of money from Toyota to go around too, and there's no scandals to save face from that would threaten their next prototype. And like I said, if they are saving money from lmp1 to hypercar, they could take what was to be their budget and use some of it to upgrade the 'old' TS050 and set a couple records. I would guess it'd go to Spa, Nurburgring and maybe Fuji. I doubt it'd even cost anywhere near what any of these other programs do. It doesn't sound extremely expensive to take off fuel flow meters, hybrid (<8mj) restrictions and upgrade the aero.

[Deleted]

Further bop penalties
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/0...lverstone.html

[Lutzvic]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Further bop penalties
http://www.dailysportscar.com/2019/0...lverstone.html

If 99 and 108 kg is still not enough.....then it's time to quit LMP1.....
I really do hope we see a competitive race.....

[GasperG]

I think not, It's even higher praise for hybrid Technology... If they win

They already made this clear in latest PR:
"At Silverstone, the TS050 HYBRIDs will be 94kg heavier than the non-turbo Rebellion and 85kg heavier than the turbo-charged Ginetta. Meanwhile, the Rebellion is permitted 61% more fuel per stint than the TS050 HYBRID, with the Ginetta’s turbo engine allowed 50% more."
https://newsroom.toyota.eu/toyota-ga...nship-defence/

They will have to make adjustment to that.

Believe me that they will take this numbers and they will brag about them to the moon and back.

[Deleted]

They've always bragged about having supposedly less of everything than the competition

Few examples:

https://www.menafn.com/qn_news_story...-New-Challenge

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing may be the only major manufacturer in the LMP1 class but it faces an unprecedented challenge to its hybrid electric technology; the TS050 HYBRIDs must fight for victory against LMP1 rivals who have 69% more fuel energy.

New regulations for this season give private LMP1 teams, who do not use hybrid technology, 210.9 MJ per lap of Le Mans compared to the 124.9 MJ available to the TS050 HYBRID, together with 8 MJ of hybrid electric energy.

Fuel flow for the TS050 HYBRIDs is also restricted, to 80 kg per hour compared to 110 kg/h for the competition in a further move to strengthen the non-hybrid LMP1 cars, which additionally are allowed to run 45 kgs lighter.

https://uk.sports.yahoo.com/news/toy...084452677.html

"The regulations have set us a challenge like no other," said Toyota team director Rob Leupen at the launch of the team's WEC programme at Paul Ricard.

"We have demonstrated since 2012 that our hybrid electric powertrain delivers real performance and efficiency benefits; now we must be more efficient than ever to beat our LMP1 rivals, who have significantly more energy, more fuel flow and less weight.

https://www.motorsport.com/wec/news/...n/4306937/amp/

Asked whether therefore the privateers would need to be slowed under the EoT rules if they continued to catch up to Toyota, Vasselon replied: "At some point, it could be.

"Mathematically, these cars can be very fast. If you build up a simulation model with parameters, fundamentally these cars can be very quick – and more and more, they achieve this.

"It’s still inconsistent, sometimes it’s one car, sometimes it’s the other car, but more and more they will do the job. We are already in the working window where these cars can be a threat, for sure."

www.motorsport.com/lemans/news/toyota-stint-advantage-privateers-lmp1/4439222/amp/

Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon described the differences in fuel usage allowed to the Toyotas and the privateers as "massive".

"We are talking about something like 35 percent," he said. "We could not dream about a better demonstration of the efficiency advantage that a hybrid system brings."

https://sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/lotterer-naive-think-lmp1-eot-112600327.html

"The [privateers] can use more fuel per lap. They have the potential to have a lot higher downforce, so they are better in traffic and in the corners.

https://www.autosport.com/wec/news/145072/toyota-boss-hits-out-at-smp-as-it-exits-wec

"SMP lost six laps on us at Le Mans, but plenty of that was down to them because their pitstops weren't quick enough. You can complain, but those laps lost as a team you will never get back through EoT or whatever in the regulations."

[TF110]

They're right in most of the things they said. The advantage they had in the sporting side was pretty substantial though. One lap more than the non-hybrids and faster refueling really separated them. The hybrid is only a part of the advantage of the Toyota has. Even without the stint advantage and the refueling, they have a better suspension setup and of course the 4wd.

I don't know what will happen to this advantage in terms of the hypercar rules. 4wd is seemingly limited to 120kmh+ activation and the hybrid power is a fraction of the current level. Plus non-hybrid is getting a boost to 750hp.

[Deleted]

Do not forget that they also used to have a "safeguard" half a second margin.

-- The 0.25 percent advantage, which is equivalent to half a second at Le Mans. Vasselon described the half-second as "a kind of safeguard" that reflected Toyota's perceived potential of the privateer cars for last year's race. "Now we do not need the safeguard; now we are down to zero," he said.

Anyway, surely in a conventional BoP formula, the hybrid advantage will always be absolute zero (unless AMR doesn't show up for the first year, then I reckon it'll get political bop boosts against the privateers)

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Chiana

Do not forget that they also used to have a "safeguard" half a second margin.

-- The 0.25 percent advantage, which is equivalent to half a second at Le Mans. Vasselon described the half-second as "a kind of safeguard" that reflected Toyota's perceived potential of the privateer cars for last year's race. "Now we do not need the safeguard; now we are down to zero," he said.

Anyway, surely in a conventional BoP formula, the hybrid advantage will always be absolute zero (unless AMR doesn't show up for the first year, then I reckon it'll get political bop boosts against the privateers)

Which wasn't even needed because none of them were within a second, but come 2019's LM24 and it was an entirely different story. I don't expect anything to change in Toyota being the fastest but I do think it will be as close as the last round of qualifying.

[chernaudi]

Thing is (and I think most of us will agree) that aside from one or two details, that's how it should've been all a long (referring to LM '19) for the whole WEC season last year. If Toyota hadn't been gifted the refueling and stint length advantage for LM, things might have been closer. Even then, it was closer between factory and privateer than it was in forever, 2006 excluded, where the winning Audi was 4 laps ahead of the second place Pescarolo.

[helgi]

With 100 kg (almost 10%) more weight and 50% (?) less fuel they are still a way faster than Oreca. Just shows perfectly the difference between something based on engineering experience grown in terms of sheer competition and something based on "frozen" regs relaxing atmosphere of LMP2 golden goose. I'm amazed by one single question: where do TMG get their motivation to compete against these engineer-interest-less moneymakers. I don't see any fresh ideas from Oreca - they just wait for other EOT-SHMEOT-BOP dispensation. And TMG find themselves in stupid situation when almost nobody cares about their real success with beating records and so on.

[Akrapovic]

Apart from the obvious advantages of the hybrid (power, torque, instant torque, 4wd, immunity from pit lane regulations), the TS050 gets constant heavy updates. This years car has significant aero changes from last years. So even if they did manage to equalise how fast Toyota was last year to the Rebellion, the Rebellion has remained static since it's a customer car, and the Toyota has moved on yet again.

Just look at the nose. It's been raised and it now has the vents through it. So the floor is now more effective since the dirty air is being funnelled away. You just can't get that level of aero detail from a customer car. Look at the detail with the mirrors. That's something a customer team doesn't have time to work on.

You need a lot more than 100kg and less fuel to undo all of the hard work Toyota puts in.

[TF110]

Rebellion doesn't have money for a second car let alone more development. On top of that, lmp1 is on the way out after this season so really, what's the use when you can just rely on penalties applied to Toyota to get you close(r)? If they keep using the car for the first year of hypercar/lmp1 next season, it'll be a lot faster than the new cars by pure regulation. So they can get slowed and hope for a chance they know their car better than a new team. I think Ginetta has a similar mindset. Toyota used the same style car for 3 years so I think an update was due anyway and why not go all-out with the last year of the TS050?

[chernaudi]

Originally Posted by TF110

Rebellion doesn't have money for a second car let alone more development. On top of that, lmp1 is on the way out after this season so really, what's the use when you can just rely on penalties applied to Toyota to get you close(r)? If they keep using the car for the first year of hypercar/lmp1 next season, it'll be a lot faster than the new cars by pure regulation. So they can get slowed and hope for a chance they know their car better than a new team. I think Ginetta has a similar mindset. Toyota used the same style car for 3 years so I think an update was due anyway and why not go all-out with the last year of the TS050?

I approve of this comment, though it's a bit of a hard pill to swallow given that we want to see things tighter up front. But we won't get that until we get another OEM factory team, and that won't happen until the new rules are phased in for LMP1.

Not to mention, the new TS050, at least if you ask me, just looks flat out cool.

[MaskedRacer]

Anybody have a fake or pretend spotter guide (sideways) design of a Toyota GR Super Sport hypercar in the Gazoo racing livery?

[V8 Fireworks]

Originally Posted by Akrapovic

You need a lot more than 100kg and less fuel to undo all of the hard work Toyota puts in.

What's the point of restricting the Toyota anyway? Toyota are the best team: well resourced, skilled engineers, so why shouldn't they just win all the time?

Of course, for example, in WRC, there are other good teams (Citroen, Ford, Hyundai) so Toyota don't win all the time there.

Originally Posted by helgi

I'm amazed by one single question: where do TMG get their motivation to compete against these engineer-interest-less moneymakers.

Well Toyoda-san didn't want TMG to do the WRC program, for whatever reason (though do they do the aero and engines for Makinnen's team?), so the engineers have no choice but to work on tweaking the TS050! There isn't an alternative program for them to think about!

Tweaking things is what engineers do after all.

As for motivation... Well the desire to win-at-all-costs and find the unfair advantage can only be tested against other teams of the same, or higher, calibre... It could be that TMG are just plodding along with solid, middle-of-the-road designs like they had in F1.

[chernaudi]

It also bears remembering that the Audi R8 was built to take on the likes of Toyota, Mercedes, and BMW at LM in 2000, but at the end of '99 they all left basically for F1. Now you probably get a hint of how TMG feels right now to be just like Audi Sport almost 20 years ago