What we've learned at Le Mans so far

With two days of practice and qualifying in the books, on top of the pre-event test two weeks earlier, all indicators point to Toyota having every chance of finally banishing its Le Mans 24 Hours curse.

But history tells us that anything is possible when it comes to Toyota at Le Mans - except, seemingly, winning. Last year's problem with an agonising six minutes remaining handed victory to Porsche, so there will be plenty of nerves in the Toyota garage throughout the race no matter how strong its position.

It seems to hold all the aces: three cars compared to Porsche's two, Kamui Kobayashi's record-breaking pole-position lap at a remarkable pace of 3m14.791s, a front-row lockout and a 100% record in this year's World Endurance Championship races.

But, while the story of whether Toyota can finally do what it's so far found impossible at Le Mans will take centre stage this weekend, there are plenty of other storylines to watch closely.

PORSCHE IS CLOSER THAN IT LOOKS
By Gary Watkins (@gazzasportscars)

Porsche is back in the game, no matter how far behind it was after Kobayashi's record-breaking pole lap in qualifying.

There was an air of confidence in the Porsche camp after the first practice and qualifying sessions on Wednesday. Nick Tandy called it a "buzz", and it didn't seem to have disappeared despite the two-second gap to the Toyotas in the final timesheets.

The German manufacturer went away after its disappointing performance at the official pre-race test at the start of the month, did its homework and bounced back with a car with which it believes it can challenge for a hat-trick of Le Mans 24 Hours wins.

"We've fine-tuned the package and tied everything together, and made the car much more driveable," said Timo Bernhard. "Kamui did a monster lap, but it was an ultra-clear lap, which explains the big gap because Neel [Jani] and I got traffic on our qualifying runs.

"If you look at the long runs, we're still looking healthy. That lap doesn't change anything. We're confident that we're going into the race in a position to fight."

AN ORECA WILL WIN LMP2
By Edd Straw (@EddStrawF1)

It's no surprise to see that ORECA 07 is the car to beat of the four new-generation LMP2 manufacturers. But given all are powered by identical 4.2-litre Gibson V8 engines, it's remarkable to see just how much quicker it is.

Granted, the track is eight-and-a-half miles long and takes an LMP2 car three-and-a-half minutes to lap, but the gap is big. The quickest non-ORECA in qualifying was the Team SMP Dallara of Mikhail Aleshin, which was 2.430s slower than Alex Lynn's pole time.

The quickest Ligier, the United Autosports example of Filipe Albuquerque, was 3.799s off. And the sole Riley, that of Keating Motorsports, was slower still.

The ORECA not only has the pace, but also strength in numbers. Of the 25 cars in the class, 14 are ORECAS - don't be fooled by the Signatech-entered 'Alpines', for these are simply re-homologated, renamed but otherwise unchanged ORECAs.

As one driver put it, the ORECA is "faster on straights, corners and can brake later" than the other LMP2 cars. Given the class does have a Balance of Performance mechanism, albeit one that is rarely used, you could make an argument for intervening. But ORECA has done a superb job while rivals such as Ligier appear to have badly misjudged the levels of aero efficiency and downforce needed to be competitive.

"It's very frustrating if you've got a Ligier, a Riley or a Dallara," says Lynn. "But at the same time, you have to say ORECA has played an absolute blinder. From the outlap in that car, I was just 'woah'. It's a monumental difference to the old car and it feels proper fast to drive."

The good news is that, of the ORECAs, there are plenty of good teams and strong driver line-ups, so it should still be a very close battle for victory.

GTE BALANCE OF PERFORMANCE IS WORKING BETTER...
By Stuart Codling (CoddersF1)

You may not think it, given the war of words that erupted between Ford and Ferrari drivers pre-event, but the much-maligned Balance of Performance formula that seeks to equalise the greatly varying machinery within the GTE class seems to be functioning better in 2017 than it did last year, when Ford won with relative ease, if not without controversy.

It's believed that the most challenging element - and one that turned BoP into a running battle during 2016 - was finding a way of integrating the performance of Ford's turbocharged V6 within the competitive fabric of a category in which naturally aspirated engines were the norm.

To remove the human element as much as possible, the FIA and the ACO this year introduced an 'automatic' BoP system based on mathematical analysis of performance on a race-by-race basis - but only in the other World Endurance Championship rounds.

The Circuit de la Sarthe is so different in character and size from the other circuits on the WEC calendar that the BoP here has to be manually adjusted, introducing what we might call a 'fudge factor'.

To compare the spread of performance across the 2017 GTE Pro field - less than two seconds separates the 13 entries, whereas the slowest of the 14 qualifiers in '16 was well over six seconds off the fastest - is a relatively coarse measurement, but it does suggest that the performance disparities have been narrowed.

That, of course, hasn't prevented some dark mutterings about sandbagging or other chicanery, but with all the data available to the FIA and the ACO that would be very difficult to disguise.

Paranoia aside, the most potent argument against the current BoP framework is that it enables Aston Martin to continue to field the elderly Vantage, with no onward investment in its performance, while its rivals in effect have to 'dumb down' their cars.

The presence of the works Astons in first and third on the GTE Pro grid does lend credence to that theory, but some of their rivals pull back from going down that road - probably because elevating all competitors to the level of the best would be singularly difficult to achieve.

"The idea [of BoP] is that any particular car, on any particular day, can win or be the fastest," says Corvette Racing programme manager Doug Fehan. "I can tell you that at Corvette Racing our philosophy has never been that we have to have the fastest car."

...BUT THE STORY ISN'T OVER YET
By Stuart Codling

The Balance of Performance can be changed again between qualifying and the race, as it was last year when the Ford and Ferrari teams were hit with additional weight penalties (10kg for Ford, which had been given a 25kg break ahead of the event, and 15kg for Ferrari), and Ford was instructed to revise its turbo boost ratios downwards, while Aston Martin, Chevrolet and Porsche benefitted from measures including larger air restrictors and greater fuel tank capacity.

"BoP is one of the most difficult tasks," says Toni Vilander, driver of the #82 Risi Competizione Ferrari that provided Ford's biggest challenge last year. "You're never going to get it right for everybody - if there's a job I don't ever want to have to do, it's to decide on the BoP.

"What makes me angry is people hiding [performance]. Without mentioning any names, some manufacturers crying for two months, saying that they don't have the pace, and then they post the new lap record.

"If you know you have the speed, don't complain, don't make a mess about it in the press, don't get your drivers campaigning on social media. That's the part I don't respect.

"The other thing you have to consider is the tyres. If you do your homework wrong and come here with compounds that don't work for you, then they could give you another 100 horsepower, but over the course of a 14-lap stint you won't make it - there's no use having another 10km/h straightline speed if you don't have the driveability in the corners and the car isn't handling nicely."

DON'T IGNORE THE 'OTHER' LMP1 CAR
By Gary Watkins

The ByKolles team is looking good for the race after making a dramatic step forward after its switch to the Nissan twin-turbo V6 for the 2017 season. So much so that its ENSO CLM P1/01 has gone faster around Le Mans than the Rebellion R-One, previously the benchmark in the privateer LMP1 class, ever did.

It's not an entirely fair comparison courtesy of rule changes devised to bring the privateers closer to the factories, but it is indicative of the progress that ByKolles has made since its engine transplant. The CLM has found an amazing nine seconds since last year.

Oliver Webb leapfrogged the quickest LMP2s on the grid with a late run in final qualifying, posting a 3m24.744s followed by a 3m24.170s. The team sat in the pits for the majority of the session before unleashing the car with full power, and it reckoned it could have gone faster.

"Our theoretical best even with traffic was a 3m22.1s, so I think without traffic the car can do a 3m20s," said Webb. "We waited for a gap out on track and went for it."

The task now for ByKolles is to get through the race without problems, and the signs are good based on the evidence of practice and qualifying.

"We've just got to try to run trouble free," said team boss Boris Bermes. "If we can do that we should be ahead of the P2s on a track like this."

Where that kind of run will leave the CLM at the end of the race will be entirely dependent on the reliability of the factory P1 cars.

BRAKES ARE A PROBLEM IN LMP2
By Edd Straw

These LMP2 cars are all-new, so there are still plenty of gremlins that could rear their heads. It won't be anything like the bad old days of the secondary prototype class, when anyone still running at the end would have a very good chance of winning just by surviving, but it could make a difference.

"It's a big question for everybody, will we change or not?" says TDS ORECA driver Matthieu Vaxiviere when asked about the brakes.

"But at least it's not too long to change it. With the safety car, maybe it's possible to make the change and only lose one safety car [group].

"But we need to push on the brakes, because if you release on the brakes [to preserve them], you will lose too much. So we push and if we change, we change."

Estimates vary, but most teams - and this is for all manufacturers, not only the ORECAs - suspect they will have to change brakes once during the race, which would be around half distance. But others are warning that this race is something of an unknown, so perhaps even two changes could be possible.

It's going to have to be closely monitored throughout the race, and the relative time loss that would be suffered by a car having to make a change under green-flag conditions compared to under the safety car or with a slow zone in operation (although Vaxiviere's hope that dropping back only one safety car group seems optimistic) could be decisive.

QUALIFYING STILL ISN'T EVERYTHING
By Stuart Codling

Now that mechanical reliability is such that Le Mans is mostly a flat-out race for all classes, some pundits claim that qualifying has become as important as it would be in a two-hour sprint. That doesn't wash with many of the competitors in GTE.

"It certainly wasn't our focus in first qualifying to lay down a lap time," says Ford driver Ryan Briscoe. "Even into the evening session we were looking at race runs, getting our mandatory night laps in, and trying to evaluate the tyres because we have quite a few compounds to choose from here.

"But there comes a point where you want to give it a go and see what you've got, where you stand. Now, I didn't believe after Wednesday that we were two seconds off the pace, and we didn't know what everyone else was doing, but it's important to get a feel for what you've got going into the race."

Racing drivers are competitive by nature, so it's to be expected that they should want to go for a quick time in qualifying. But with the limited track time available - there's a lot of boxes to tick during the practice and qualifying sessions leading up to the 24 Hours, not least of which is ensuring every driver completes their mandatory night laps - there are more important targets.

"In qualifying we look for peak performance, but in the hot conditions we concentrate on the set-up for the race to learn as much as we can," says Porsche motorsport director Frank-Steffen Walliser. "If you have a shot with fresh tyres you try, but we don't overstretch it."

Dirk Werner, one of Walliser's factory drivers, agrees: "You want to be close to the leading cars in your class, because with the safety car situation [at Le Mans, there are two on track at the same time] it's easy to get split. And you can see where that's happened in some races in recent years, an early safety car has split the field and some cars have lost time and haven't been able to get back on terms with the leaders again."

"The key to victory here is having a car that's easy and comfortable to drive throughout a wide range of conditions," says Fehan. "If you give these guys a car they're comfortable with over 24 hours, that works in your favour - they're far less physically and mentally stressed.

"If you look at what we did [in Wednesday's first qualifying session], we didn't try to create a pole time, we didn't go out on fresh tyres and empty tanks. When do you race with that? Never.

"If it's important for you to win the pole, that's fine, but for me, those wreaths you see over there [he points to a hoarding celebrating Chevrolet's many class victories at Le Mans] are what's important, and we've done that by utilising great strategy, tremendous pitstop execution, and some pretty darned good driving. That's where our focus is."

THE TRAFFIC PROBLEM HAS EVOLVED
By Edd Straw

Depending on who you talk to, traffic will either be better in this year's race or worse. So that's as clear as mud.

So what's changed? Well, the LMP1 hybrids are quicker than ever; the LMP2 cars, now with engines kicking out around 600bhp, are quicker than ever by an even bigger margin; and GTE cars are much the same as before.

There aren't as many LMP1 cars as before - six to be precise - and they tend to be universally well-driven, decisive and pack such a punch off the corners thanks to the hybrid systems that they aren't too problematic. Until, of course, you factor in the question of the top speed of the leading LMP2 cars, which can be quicker late in the straights.

But the main problem will be LMP2 and GTE cars, not least because there's a total of 54 across those two classes.

The increased straightline speed of the LMP2 cars means they can pass GTE cars much more easily. But at the same time, drivers are complaining about having to do it a lot more often thanks to the huge speed hike.

You can guarantee - with such big speed differentials, a vast spread of experience from 17 to 65-year-olds, 44 rookie drivers and fatigue all playing a role - there will be some incidents.