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.