The WEC's LMP1 promise that couldn't be kept

Can Toyota be beaten by the new wave of privateers entering the World Endurance Championship for the 2018/19 superseason? The answer has to be no, and that's not just because it's the only manufacturer still standing in LMP1.

That status, of course, means it has more resources, a higher level of organisation and a better driver line-up than any of the independents, not to mention a proven three-year-old design in the TS050 HYBRID pitched against an array of new cars from Ginetta, Rebellion and BR Engineering.

But it also has the rulebook on its side.

LMP1 privateers running non-hybrid machinery were promised lap time parity with manufacturer hybrids when the WEC and series promoter the Automobile Club de l'Ouest outlined their bold vision for the future of the series last September. Saving LMP1 was an important part of the rescue package announced at the 2017 Mexico City round, which included the 14-month superseason that straddles two editions of the Le Mans 24 Hours.

The promise appeared to be that the privateers would be given whatever they required to run at the same pace as the Toyotas. That essentially meant the necessary amount of fuel to allow them to match the Toyota hybrids with their 400bhp electric punch out of the corners.

What they were never going to be permitted to do was to run as long on a tank of fuel as the TS050s. That wouldn't sit well with the fuel-flow formula, with its emphasis on efficiency, which is still at least meant to be at the heart of the LMP1 regulations.

It would be wrong to say that the WEC, the ACO, as well as the FIA, have reneged upon their promise. It would be more correct to say that they have been unable to deliver upon it. They arguably made a promise they couldn't keep.

That's because Toyota was in a strong position when it came to negotiating the regulations for the superseason and the first WEC winter series in 2019/20. Not only was it the only manufacturer left in the top class after the withdrawals of first Audi and then Porsche, but it had FIA statutes on its side.

Porsche's announcement that it was quitting LMP1 at the end of July came after the point at which the regulations could be unilaterally changed by the rulemakers. All changes had to be negotiated with - and accepted by - the existing competitors.

"We have agreed to have the non-hybrid cars a bit closer, but not at the same pace" Toyota's Pascal Vasselon

Toyota, of course, knew it had to make concessions if the category was to survive beyond the withdrawal of its two rivals of the past four season.

"We understood that there was no point in having two cars running much faster than the others, and running longer," says Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon. "Definitely we have agreed to have the non-hybrid cars a bit closer, but not at the same pace. Again, from our point of view, it doesn't make sense."

That's an admission from Toyota that it wasn't prepared to agree to lap time parity for privateers running to a different rule book. Vasselon makes a point of calling it "artificial competition".

It is important to remember that the Toyotas haven't been slowed for the coming season. And it is also not entirely correct to say the privateers been speeded up. The changes that should allow the indies to run close to the pace of the hybrids were actually put in place for last season.

The more efficient rear wing and the bigger front dive planes allowed for the privateers were announced in June 2016, along with a lower minimum weight. That meant they were introduced at the same time as changes for factory machinery designed to slow them, or rather prevent a further tumbling of lap times in the class. The Porsche and Toyota had to work around new aero rules designed to rob them of 30% downforce, though of course the boffins in Stuttgart and Cologne quickly found it back.

It was these regulations that encouraged SMP Racing with its BR Engineering spin-off and Ginetta to start work on LMP1 projects for this season. They were long since in the works when the WEC made its bold promise last autumn. Rebellion Racing did, however, make its decision to return to LMP1 following a successful season in the LMP2 ranks after the Mexican promise.

The privateers are also not being given more fuel than last year under the Equivalence of Technology. That's the grand title the rulemakers give to their attempts to balance hybrids and non-hybrids, and back in the old days, petrol LMP1s with Audi's turbodiesels.

The ByKolles team's Nissan-powered ENSO CLM P1/01, the only privateer car to compete in the WEC last season, was allowed 115kg of petrol per hour in 2017, whereas the figure for this year's series opener at Spa on Saturday is only 110kg/hr.

It appears that this was what Toyota was willing to accept. The lower figure is an admission that Dallara and ORECA, which have respectively designed and built the new BRE BR1 and the Rebellion R-13, are likely to do a better job than a minnow such as ByKolles. The rulemakers even privately admitted after the announcement of the 2017 rules package that they might have to slow the indies should someone really get their teeth into the regulations.

Toyota has made sure it still has an advantage written in black and white. Exactly how much of an advantage isn't clear, because it isn't in the public domain. Some say it is half a second a lap, measured over the 8.47 miles of the Le Mans circuit, others that it is 0.5%, which equates to a second if you work on the basis of a 3m20s race lap of the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The TS050s will also have an advantage in the pits. The diameter of the refuelling restrictors - which control the rate at which the fuel goes into the tanks - should mean the Toyotas will be stationary for five seconds fewer than the privateer cars.

But Toyota has made a concession. A massive one. It has agreed to a dramatic cut in the amount of petrol it can use over a stint. Last year at Spa, it could use 44.1kg of the stuff, this year only 35.1kg.

"Our job is to be there or thereabouts so that we can profit if Toyota chokes" Rebellion's Neel Jani

The TS050 was able to go 14 laps between stops at Le Mans in 2017. The intention is that it will now do 11-lap stints in the 24 Hours, which will give it a one-lap advantage over the non-hybrids.

For Spa, which is roughly half the length of the Le Mans, that will be two laps, so expect 19 laps for Toyotas and 17 laps for the chasing pack of privateers. The changes recently made to the EoT, according to the organisers, were to ensure this margin rather than to slow the privateers in any way.

The EoT looks set to be something of a moving feast through the superseason. In the old, petrol versus diesel days it was set over a 12-month period from Le Mans to Le Mans, though there was an occasional helping hand for the privateers. Now the rulemakers are reserving the right to change it as and when, pointing out that balancing cars that achieve their lap time in very different ways is not an easy job. Their view is that "if something is wrong, we will have to react".

They can even react during a race. Should one of the privateer LMP1s prove too fast (which presumably means faster than a Toyota), then it can be penalised. That's based on the premise that if one does go faster than expected then the performance data supplied by the relevant team and constructor is not correct. Or perhaps that it has hidden its hand in some way.

The provision for five-minute stop-go penalties and one-lap penalties at the end of the race is there in the sporting regulations. Further details of some kind of penalty system have been promised but so far not revealed.

The privateers are undoubtedly in a stronger position than last year. Even if an ORECA or a Dallara had built an LMP1 car, it still would have been nowhere against the hybrid factory cars because of the massive discrepancy in stint length. But how close are they really going to be in the superseason?

Toyota is going to be quicker out on track and go longer between pitstops, when it will gain even more time. That makes it difficult to see how the privateers can compete. Unless, of course, the sole manufacturer left in LMP1 runs into only relatively minor problems.

"We can't beat the factories on pace," says 2016 WEC champion Neel Jani, who has returned to the Rebellion fold for the coming season. "Our job is to be there or thereabouts so that we can profit if Toyota chokes."

That's the kind of scenario the ACO has talked about for years. It has always wanted the best of the privateers to be there ready and waiting to pick up the pieces should the factory participants trip up. That's not having major technical problems, just a minor delay of some kind.

The privateers will be closer than ever in the short history of the reborn WEC during the superseason, but the reality is that they won't be racing with Toyota. Certainly not over a race distance, and not even over a lap despite the promises.