WEC's EoT mission is impossible and unnecessary

Balancing different types of racing car isn't easy. IMSA rules boss Scot Elkins came up with the "apples and oranges" analogy to describe his oft-criticised efforts to equalise the old Daytona Prototypes with LMP2 machinery in the first years of the merged IMSA SportsCar Championship. I reckon apples and kiwanoes would better apply to the task faced by the rulemakers in the World Endurance Championship right now.

I say kiwano, that prickly melon-like thing from deepest Africa, because it's the most exotic fruit I can think of. And the Toyota TS050 HYBRID is pretty much as exotic as a racing car comes. That makes it very different to the non-hybrid privateer LMP1 cars, the humble apples of the WEC's premier class.

The advantages that come with a twin energy-retrieval system packing a 400bhp punch are immense, perhaps even hard to quantify. Which is why the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and the FIA have their work cut out to create a level playing field at the front of the WEC grid, to finally live up to the promise of lap-time parity made nearly a year ago.

But that's what they are now attempting to do, with the agreement of Toyota. And the first steps have been taken in that direction in time for this weekend's British round of the championship around the majestic Silverstone Grand Prix circuit.

The advantage, admittedly a slender one, in Toyota's favour enshrined in an addendum to the rules at the start of the 2018/19 superseason has now been wiped out. The theoretical 0.25% advantage, equivalent to half a second around the eight-plus miles of the Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans, has gone.

But we have to say 'theoretical' because the privateers, Rebellion, SMP Racing et al were not even close to being within half a second at Le Mans back in June. Not on one lap, and certainly not on the averages.

The idea is that should they exploit the technology available to them to the absolute maximum, they will be able to match Toyota on pace. On the evidence of Le Mans, and the WEC opener at Spa before it, that's some way off. The nearest privateer wasn't half a second back, not a second back, but a whopping 2.3s in arrears.

But we shouldn't forget that the privateer packages are all brand new with the exception of the ByKolles team's Nissan-powered ENSO CLM. There's clearly room for improvement for each one of the indies. How much? We don't know, of course.

The changes to the Equivalence of Technology, the grandiose term borrowed from previous efforts to create parity between petrol and diesel cars of different hybrid outputs, will bring the privateers closer to the pacesetting Toyotas.

"At Le Mans, Toyota could have stopped to have an ice cream and still been miles ahead at the finish" Neel Jani

They have been given a higher rate of fuel flow, the means by which conventional engine power outputs have been controlled in the WEC since 2014. The figure - measured in kilogrammes per hour - is up from 108 to 115. The increase in power with increased fuel flow is pretty much linear, so six or so percent more fuel means six or so percent more power.

Given that the engines in use by the privateers probably have knocking on 700bhp, that's somewhere in the region of 40bhp. A healthy chunk. As is the 15kg weight break given to the two teams running a normally-aspirated engine - both Rebellion's R-13 and DragonSpeed's BR Engineering BR1 use the 4.5-litre Gibson V8 - after the rulemakers somewhat controversially concluded that the non-turbos needed a helping hand.

But even if these measures are enough to bring the privateers onto Toyota's pace, my contention is that they still won't be able to race the Japanese cars. And that goes back to the 400bhp the TS050 has from its twin-hybrid energy-retrieval system. That makes the Toyota a much more raceable machine.

Rebellion driver Neel Jani knows all about the benefits of racing a hybrid as a past WEC title and Le Mans winner aboard Porsche's 919 Hybrid.

"With the hybrid you are flexible where and when you can use that extra power on the track," he explains. "You can use it where you think you are going to run into traffic and get slowed up.

"At Turn 1 [Abbey] here at Silverstone, we know that if we get a GT car in front of us, we can lose one and a half, two seconds. In a hybrid, you can use the boost coming onto the straight and get ahead before the corner. You will lose elsewhere, but it is not going to be one and a half seconds."

Nor should we forget that Toyota still has an advantage in terms of the number of laps it can do between fuel stops. It gave away much of this in the run-up to the start of the superseason - this was actually its big concession - but it kept some of it.

The number of laps between stops was mandated for Toyota and the privateers at the first two races of the WEC superseason. The TS050s had a two-lap advantage at Spa and one lap at Le Mans.

This won't be the case from now on, but the intention of the rules is that the Toyotas should still go further on their fuel allocation thanks to the benefits that come with its hybrid systems. So that's another advantage in its favour.

So even if Rebellion and its fellow privateers can match Toyota over one racing lap, can they actually race it over six hours? Probably not.

But is there anything wrong with that?

What we shouldn't forget is that privateers beating factories is not the natural order in motorsport. It does happen - Joest Racing did it three times at Le Mans (pictured in 1985 above) and Techeetah almost did it in Formula E in the season just gone - but it is the exception.

Even if these measures are enough to bring the privateers onto Toyota's pace, they still won't be able to race the Japanese cars

Should we really expect Rebellion, SMP, ByKolles, DragonSpeed and, on their promised return to the WEC, Manor and Ginetta, to beat Toyota or even race with it wheel to wheel? Of course, we shouldn't.

A manufacturer team such as Toyota, even if it doesn't have a performance advantage, should generally prevail. It is likely to have done the most testing, will have the best organisation and probably the best driver line-up, too.

The privateers are racing to a different rulebook to Toyota even before you factor in the EoT. It is easy to forget that the advantages in the independents' favour were put in place for the 2017 season. There were a series of aerodynamic measures introduced at the same time as the factory LMP1 cars were being pegged back on aero.

It would be somehow artificial if the privateers were able to beat Toyota in a straight fight under what is essentially a two-tier rulebook. And that's a viewpoint held by some within the privateer camp.

"It is clear that Toyota has the best car," says Jani. "It would be unfair if they make us so quick that we can beat them in a straight fight. The car is just technically superior.

"The aim of the EoT should be if they choke in some way we are up there. It should be that if something happens to them, they have a penalty or have to change parts, then we are close enough to put them under pressure.

"At Le Mans they could have stopped to have an ice cream and still been miles ahead at the finish."

The ACO and the FIA probably face an impossible task in balancing the independents with the last factory standing in the WEC. But is that such a bad thing?

Back in the day, the privateers won - Joest excepted, perhaps - only when the works teams tripped up. It would have required something worse than than a trip from Toyota for Rebellion or whoever to win in 2018.

The hope must be that some kind of Silverstone stumble for the Toyota might be enough for a privateer to truly get in the mix this weekend.