The ground-up refresh behind Toyota's new Le Mans challenger

It looks like a Toyota, and to the untrained eye it could be an LMP1. Yet the machine that will carry the Japanese manufacturer's hopes in a brave new era for the World Endurance Championship starting this year is a very different beast to the line of prototypes that preceded it.

The Toyota GR010 HYBRID developed to the new Le Mans Hypercar regulations is all new, save for the odd switch and sensor. It had to be, because there's a new ruleset with a new philosophy.

The aero rules are different, and so are those governing the technology that has been the selling point of the top class of the WEC since the rebirth of the series in 2012. The GR010 couldn't retain much from its predecessor, the TS050 HYBRID LMP1 car that won the Le Mans 24 Hours three times and the WEC twice, such has been the "magnitude of the regulation change", explains Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon.

"The only parts that we could carry over were sensors, switches and buttons," he says.

The LMH aerodynamic regulations are not prescriptive in the traditional sense of 'you can do this and you can't do that'. Rather, they set a maximum figure for downforce and a minimum figure for drag. The figures are relatively modest, not only to keep costs under control, but also to ensure that the windtunnel and computer don't determine the look of the car.

The intention is for a manufacturer to incorporate its styling signatures into its car or give it the look of a road-going super-sportscar, and still hit those targets. Hence the 'hypercar' moniker of the new category.

"There has been not only a regulation change, but a regulation principle change," explains Vasselon. "In LMH, what is specified is a performance target. We are told you can do what you want, but you have to fit in a very precise performance window. This gives freedom, and with this freedom we can integrate some styling elements of road cars. This is why these cars will look great and different."

Vasselon describes the look of the GR010 as a "good mix between a real race car and an extreme road-going car". It takes its inspiration from the GR Super Sport, which was first shown in concept form three years ago and then appeared in running form at Le Mans last September.

The unveiling of the Super Sport in January 2018 was part of the launch of a new Toyota sporting sub-brand called Gazoo Racing, or simply GR as per the prefix to the new car's type number. The rules have enabled Toyota to "incorporate some styling cues that will be seen in future GR road cars", according to Vasselon. Asked to be specific on the virtual launch of the car from Motorland Aragon in Spain last week, he pointed to the nose, the tail and the wheel arches.

"Considering that the category is giving a bit more margin in terms of weight, there was really no point to be challenging a small, light engine. So we took a punch to the margin just for reliability. And then you end up at 3.5 litres" Pascal Vasselon

It should be noted that the GR010 is a pure-bred prototype, even if its styling tips its hat to a machine that will eventually spawn a road car. That new super-sportscar - calling it a hypercar only creates confusion - is being developed in parallel with the GR010 with input from TGRE.

The car is also bigger than its predecessor. The rules allow an LMH to be 250mm longer, 100mm wider and 100mm higher than an LMP1 to help the designers give the cars that road-car look. The increase in roof height is also linked to a new cockpit safety standard that defines a more upright seating position.

Just one aero package is allowed, rather than the two in LMP1 in the final set of regulations (it was free until the end of the 2015 season). The only adjustable element is the rear wing.

The GR010 is heavier than the TS050 too. The base weight of the outgoing LMP1 hybrid was 878kg, although it raced at 932kg for the majority of last season, whereas the new car hits the scales on the new 1040kg limit. The dramatic increase in minimum weight is part of the cost-cutting drive instigated when it was realised that LMP1 was dead in the water after Porsche announced its withdrawal from the top class of the WEC in July 2017.

The advanced FRIC-type suspension that linked the front and rear of the TS050 to improve stability of the aero platform has disappeared. It has been outlawed, also in the name of cost reduction.

The LMH rules allow for a single energy-retrieval unit - a kinetic system on the front axles, rather than the two systems permitted in LMP1. It is not mandatory, as it was in the original rules published as long ago as December 2018, but a marque that races in the WEC to improve as well as promote its hybrid technology was always going to choose this route.

Switching from a twin-hybrid system, with a motor generator unit on each axle, to only front-axle energy retrieval and boosting, says Vasselon, "creates many differences and challenges". Brake-by-wire at the rear has now been outlawed and replaced by a conventional fully hydraulic system and, with no MGU at the back, the GR010 now has a traditional starter motor. It will leave the pits under the power of its internal combustion engine rather than the electric motor.

Yet the changes to the LMH powertrain regulations are much more fundamental than just doing away with rear hybrid systems. Power was controlled in the final years of LMP1 from 2014 by allowing each car a set amount of energy, both from its internal combustion engine and its hybrid systems. Now maximum power is set by the regulations. It is a combined figure, so that the boost from a front-axle KERS system replaces power from the conventional engine in the back of the car rather than adding to it.

That explains an all-new engine significantly bigger in displacement than the 2.4-litre twin-turbo direct-injection V6 that came on stream with the TS050 in 2016. The latest engine is also a V6 - TGRE team president Hisatake Murata, the architect of Toyota's hybrid programme, admits that he is a fan of six-cylinder vees - but it is a 3.5-litre unit. The maths behind the increase in capacity of the unit developed at Toyota's Higashi-Fuji technical centre is quite simple, according to Vasselon (below).

"The demand on the combustion engine is now very different," explains the Frenchman. "In LMP1 considering the level of energy we were given, the power target was around 380-390kW [or just over 500bhp]. Here the power target is 500kW [670bhp].

"Starting with our 2.4-litre LMP1 engine, if you add 30% you end up at 3.2 litres. Considering that the category is giving a bit more margin in terms of weight, there was really no point to be challenging a small, light engine. So we took a punch to the margin just for reliability. And then you end up at 3.5 litres."

So to put it simply, power from the ICE has gone up dramatically because it has to be able to push out the full 500kW when the hybrid system is not boosting. Power from the single hybrid system has gone the other way. It is now limited to 200kW or 268bhp, whereas on the TS050 full boost gave the car a kick of approaching 500bhp. The car was said to have a total power output of just under 1000bhp, although this was slightly reduced for Le Mans. There was a 300kW [402bhp] limit on hybrid discharge at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

"In LMP1 we were able to boost as much as we could at corner exit," explains Vasselon. "Now we have a set maximum power that we have to respect at any time. All of the cars will have to respect the same power curve [whether hybrid or not], so definitely no more push to pass."

The reduced power from the hybrid system cannot be used at speeds under 120km/h, equivalent to 74.5mph. This rule was introduced at the behest of Aston Martin when it was planning to join the WEC with a racer based on the Valkyrie road car. In fact, it made it a condition of its commitment to expanding into the top class of the WEC with what would have been a non-hybrid machine, had it made it to the track.

"We lose time as a consequence in cornering speed, for two reasons: the car is heavier, and the aero efficiency is set at a lower level to what we were able to achieve in LMP1" Pascal Vasselon

A higher figure will be in place when the track is wet, which is defined by when a car is running on either full rain tyres or intermediates. It will be in the range of 140-160km/h, but has yet to be set in stone despite the season-opening eight-hour race at the Algarve circuit being less than three months away on 4 April.

Another condition of Aston's proposed WEC entry was the introduction of the Balance of Performance. This was inevitable once the rules shifted to allow road-based and non-hybrid machinery. Since then, of course, the WEC has been opened up to another type of car in the forthcoming breed of LMP2-based LMDh machinery that will also race in the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America. They will have a spec rear-axle hybrid system from a common supplier.

Vasselon concedes that Toyota would have preferred it if there was no artificial balancing, as originally intended under the LMH rules. The idea was that the reduced costs involved would bring the field together.

"We are not fans of the BoP," he says, "but we have to accept it because we need competition."

PLUS: The tiny increments that decided the final LMP1-era WEC

The GR010 has been in the works for more than two years, or longer. Don't forget that Toyota was one of the prime movers in the creation of the LMH regulations. The rules have shifted significantly since their first publication, and the maximum power output and minimum weight have bounced up and down ever since. (The latter has even shifted slightly from the 1030kg in the rules published late last year.)

On the other hand, the timeline for development of the new breed of WEC racers was extended after the COVID-19 pandemic struck and the final races of the 2019-20 WEC were delayed, which in turn forced the abandonment of the so-called winter-series schedule.

The debut of the new Toyota and its competitors was originally set for Silverstone last September. That would have meant having the car up and running in July of last year, straight after the scheduled climax of the 2019-20 WEC season at Le Mans.

"It's true that the story of the regulations process has been a rollercoaster and a challenge, but nothing that we could not overcome," says Vasselon. "In terms of schedule, I think we can see here one of the very few positives of the COVID pandemic. We were on a schedule that was a bit unrealistic originally."

The intention of the new regulations was to slash budgets from the heady days of LMP1 and the three-way fight between Toyota, Porsche and Audi. Vassleon is always saying that "performance costs money".

The lap time target for the new regulations is 3m30s at Le Mans, and Toyota suggests that the GR010 will be approximately 10s per lap slower than its predecessor around the eight and a half miles of the Circuit de la Sarthe. The 100-lap average for the fastest TS050 last year was 3m20s and the year before, with a slightly lighter car, 3m17s. A time loss of four to five seconds is expected over a regular five-kilometre WEC circuit. The GR010 loses time to the TS050 "everywhere", says Vasselon.

"We lose time as a consequence in cornering speed, for two reasons: the car is heavier, and the aero efficiency is set at a lower level to what we were able to achieve in LMP1," he explains. "Then we are losing in acceleration for two reasons: mass, again, and the fact that the combined power of the hybrid system and combustion engine is now lower."

All six Toyota race drivers, plus test and reserve pilot Nyck de Vries, concur that the new car is still very much a prototype and drives like one, even if it is slower.

"I wouldn't say it's lazy," says Brendon Hartley, who will again share the #8 Toyota with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima. "We've all commented on how much front end we've had at low speed.

"But definitely at high speed you feel the weight; you feel it when you are hitting the brake pedal. It's a heavier car, but that hasn't taken away from the pleasure of driving it."

"Every test is important to get mileage on the car and mileage on the team, in the sense of the mechanics and engineers understanding the car better. Before Sebring, it will get very tight to catch up on everything" Rob Leupen

The new regulations will change the way the two Toyota crews go about racing in the WEC. The hybrid system will no longer be a tool to zap past traffic, while the fuel-cuts and lift-and-coasting that were part of driving under the old rules will all be things of the past.

"It will definitely change the dynamic of the racing because you don't have that nice boost button to press to get by cars," explains Mike Conway, who will be aiming to repeat his 2019-20 WEC title in the #7 Toyota with co-champions Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez. "We'll be going back to a more traditional kind of driving."

"You can stay flat and brake as late as you want," adds Buemi. "That gives you a feel of being back in pure racing.

Toyota got its new-season contender out on track before the end of the delayed 2019/20 campaign: it ran for the first time at Paul Ricard in October ahead of the Bahrain finale the following month. It ran again at the Algarve circuit in Portugal in December for another three days, which included the first endurance run.

The bad news was that test number three at Motorland Aragon last week was snowed off. That was a setback, but Toyota will now be extending its next test, also at Motorland, due to take place in early February.

"The biggest issue we have is that we are missing mileage," says TGRE team director Rob Leupen. "Every test is important to get mileage on the car and mileage on the team, in the sense of the mechanics and engineers understanding the car better. That's why we are looking for additional time."

Testing has been encouraging, according to Toyota. Not only have the drivers liked the GR010, but "the car lost very little time" to glitches, minor or otherwise, says Vasselon.
Toyota has grand aspirations for the GR010, and understandably so given that it appears to have a clear run at retaining the big prizes on which it has had a monopoly since Porsche quit LMP1.

It won't face opposition from a major manufacturer until Peugeot returns to the top flight of sportscar racing some time in 2022 in a class that will be known simply as Hypercar. Until then, the Japanese manufacturer will have to beat boutique marque Glickenhaus and series stalwart ByKolles, as well as the Signatech Alpine with a grandfathered LMP1 design raced as a Rebellion over the past two seasons.

"It's the same, predictable," says Leupen of Toyota's ambitions for the GR010 HYBRID at the start of a renewed five-year commitment to the WEC. "Le Mans, one; and two, the world championship."