Why Le Mans didn't decide Toyota's WEC title outcome in 2021

Toyota swept up the first brace of titles – drivers’ and manufacturers’ – at the start of a new era for the World Endurance Championship. It would be easy to say it waltzed to them as the only major manufacturer with a Le Mans Hypercar in a slim field. After all, it claimed 1-2 finishes in four rounds of the reduced six-event schedule. Yet for all its domination, the Japanese manufacturer could so easily have lost the biggest prize at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

No one outside Toyota Gazoo Racing knew during the French enduro quite how close the team was to missing out on a fourth straight victory. The world was aware that there were issues afflicting its pair of GR010 HYBRIDs, and that they were probably similar to the one that reared its head previous time out at Monza. TGR Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon’s talk of “creative solutions” to overcome fuel pressure problems straight after the centrepiece WEC round only hinted at the drama that unfolded in the final third of the French enduro.

Indeed, the solutions thought up in the heat of battle were creative in the extreme, not least the demand to the drivers to turn the main fuel pump off and on under braking up to six times per lap. The software update that followed to bring all four of the lift pumps in the tank into play at once was less bizarre, but unprecedented nonetheless.

PLUS: The remarkable fixes Toyota used to avert another Le Mans disaster

The fuel issues definitely played a part in the championship battle between the two Toyota crews, and possibly even defined a contest that went the way of Le Mans winners Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez.

Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima suffered more in the face of Toyota’s fuel crisis than their team-mates. The championship-winning #7 GR010 had the problem at Monza in July during free practice, #8 in the race. A pitstop of nearly 50 minutes left #8 fourth in Hypercar, as the WEC’s new top class is called.

The car was running second to the sister Toyota when the problem hit, so Buemi and co lost at least six points. Arguably they lost 13, because the winning car spent a minute parked at the side of the track with an engine management glitch. The final margin in the championship battle was just five points.

Lengthy delay at Monza while fuel issue was addressed ultimately cost #8 Toyota the title

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez finally chalked up a Le Mans victory and would probably have won anyway given a clean run for the Toyotas. The #7 car had the slightest of edges on #8, which was always playing catch-up. Buemi was pushed into a spin by the Glickenhaus of Olivier Pla at the start and then had to bring the car to a halt to do a reboot. The fact that he and his co-drivers started experiencing the loss of fuel pressure before their team-mates was probably irrelevant.

Victory in the first leg of the Bahrain double-header closed out the season after the Fuji fixture was cancelled, and then the point for pole in the second effectively sealed a second straight title for Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez. Their team-mates shot themselves in the foot in Bahrain 1 with a set-up devised to counter understeer that ended up rooting the rear tyres.

PLUS: How the #7 Toyota squad moved closer to clinching WEC's 2021 title

The #7 Toyota was more often than not the quicker of the pair of four-wheel-drive GR010s. But the margin between them on a 100-lap average was in four of the races – Le Mans included – measured in hundredths rather than tenths. The champions also took four poles to their pursuers’ one. That ended up being decisive in the championship battle.

The Alpine was never a true contender, even if it looked like it on occasion, especially first time out at Spa. The French machine led 47 of the 162 laps, yet it wasn’t going to win save for major drama for Toyota

Fuel problems and the ECU glitch apart, the new Toyota LMH proved ultra-reliable through its maiden campaign. It needed to be because Toyota’s only full-season rival, Alpine, had a proven package in the Gibson-powered ORECA LMP1 design that previously raced as the Rebellion R-13.

The renamed Alpine A480 ended on the podium every time and finished only a minute off the lead in the first three races. Yet it only ended up ahead of one of the Toyotas at Spa in May when Kobayashi briefly beached #7 in the Bruxelles gravel and when the fuel problems struck #8 at Monza.

In the spirit of a ‘grandfathered’ machine, the car driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere was there, ready and waiting, to pick up the pieces if Toyota hit major problems. Only there were no real pieces to pick up. The Alpine was never a true contender, even if it looked like it on occasion, especially first time out at Spa. The French machine led 47 of the 162 laps, yet it wasn’t going to win save for major drama for Toyota.

What wasn’t totally clear at the start of the race was the car’s inability to accommodate the full energy allocation allowed to it under the Hypercar Balance of Performance. LMH was conceived with 12-lap stints at Le Mans in mind, something the Alpine wasn’t capable of courtesy of its LMP1 origins. The extra fuel stops that resulted, even after there was an increase in capacity ahead of the 24 Hours, blunted its challenge.

Alpine led at Spa, but didn't have the mileage to beat Toyota

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

The only other Hypercar entrant, American boutique marque Glickenhaus, turned up at three of the six races. It decided not to rush its Pipo-engined 007 LMH into service because once a car is homologated its specification is more or less fixed for five seasons. Outspoken team boss Jim Glickenhaus was always clear that he had little interest in taking his car to Asia, and skipped the Bahrain jaunt at the end of the season.

The 007, developed in Italy by Podium Advanced Technologies, didn’t disgrace itself on its debut in the Portimao 8 Hours in June. The car, conceived very much for Le Mans, moved closer to the pace at Monza where downforce was at less of a premium. Glickenhaus made it onto the Hypercar podium – in fourth overall behind the LMP2 winner – in Italy with Romain Dumas, Richard Westbrook and Franck Mailleux thanks to the #8 Toyota’s woes. Mailleux, Pla and Pipo Derani were able to battle with the Alpine for a podium proper at Le Mans until the 20th hour when a Full Course Yellow fell badly for them.

The Glickenhaus Racing programme was a worthy one, even with the understanding that Hypercar is a BoP formula. Yet its efforts highlighted the issues facing sportscar racing when a bevy of more big manufacturers with LMP2-based LMDh prototypes arrive in 2023. The BoP between the 007s and the A480 appeared spot on at Le Mans, but the all-wheel-drive GR010s had a significant edge.

If the Toyotas didn’t have a clear advantage when it was raining early on, courtesy of the rule that prevents four-wheel drive kicking in until the cars reach 150km/h (93mph) when not on slicks, they did when the cars changed to dry-weather rubber and that limit came down to 120km/h (75mph). The benefits of driven wheels at both ends were clear to see on a drying surface and on the green track, washed clean of rubber, that followed.

LMDh prototypes will have their motor generator units on the rear axle. The age-old problem of balancing two and four-wheel-drive machinery isn’t going to go away no matter how much data the rulemakers have on their laptops.

Glickenhaus didn't disgrace itself at Le Mans, where mixed weather showcased its 2WD disadvantage

Photo by: Paul Foster

GTE Pro: Ferrari prevail in acrimonious finish 

GTE Pro became a two-way fight between Ferrari and Porsche in 2021 on the disappearance of Aston Martin. Yet the fight was no less intense for it, either on or off the track. It ended with two weekends of acrimony in Bahrain, and a few more days besides. Ferrari drivers James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi and their employer were only confirmed as drivers’ and manufacturers’ champions four days after the finale.

That was when Porsche opted not to follow through on an appeal after the dismissal of its protest of the race results following a late-race clash between Pier Guidi and Michael Christensen, who shared its lead entry with championship contenders Kevin Estre and Neel Jani. It wasn’t the first unsuccessful protest of the week, however. Balance of Performance changes made before and in between the two Bahrain races were challenged by Ferrari.

Porsche’s protest will be the one that’s remembered because it concerned an on-track clash captured in multiple angles on TV. But Ferrari’s was more important in understanding how the battle for GTE Pro honours played out through 2021.

Understanding what was happening wasn’t easy, not least because the FIA and the ACO didn’t explain the rationale for either BoP change. It did insist that all BoP decisions, whether automatic or “manual” (its word to explain what has been labelled a black ball change), were “data-driven”

There was a realignment of the BoP ahead of the season resulting from a new blend of spec fuel from Total (now TotalEnergies). Ferrari argued that the new mix adversely affected its twin-turbo V8 in comparison with Porsche’s normally aspirated flat-six.

A draconian BoP change outside the scope of the automatic system before the Bahrain races suggested that the WEC committee, made up of technical experts from the FIA and series promoter the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, believed Ferrari had been playing a long game and using the new fuel as a smokescreen.

There had been signs that the 488 was quicker than it was proving in the hands of works drivers Pier Guidi, Calado, Miguel Molina and Daniel Serra thanks to some indecent pace from some of the GTE Am runners. Those signs appeared to be confirmed at Le Mans when the factory Ferraris upped their game to take the class win with Pier Guidi, Calado and Come Ledogar. Multiple times, if you believe Porsche.

Ferrari took the spoils at Le Mans after a fierce fight with Corvette, but Porsche felt its conduct was underhand

Photo by: Marc Fleury

Porsche alleged that Ferrari was able to increase its pace twice over the course of the 24 Hours, a race that doesn’t use the auto BoP, in a fierce battle with the mid-engined Chevrolet Corvette C8.Rs on their belated Le Mans debut. Porsche’s second-generation 911 RSR also got quicker, but only in line with the track rubbering in, it argued.

A 25bhp reduction in horsepower for Bahrain 1 left the Ferrari 488 GTE Evos trailing home third and fourth behind the Porsches. The points advantage Pier Guidi and Calado had built up at Le Mans was all but eradicated, and then entirely wiped out when Estre claimed a fifth pole of the year for the finale.

The margin between Estre and Calado in qualifying for the eight-hour event was less than two tenths, closer than it had been all year. The reason? Ferrari had got some of its horsepower back for the second race, though that didn’t stop it protesting.

Understanding what was happening wasn’t easy, not least because the FIA and the ACO didn’t explain the rationale for either BoP change. It did insist that all BoP decisions, whether automatic or “manual” (its word to explain what has been labelled a black ball change), were “data-driven”.

The results of the first Bahrain race suggested some kind of revision to the BoP was needed. The data, however, resulted in a conveniently symmetrical 50% reduction in the hit Ferrari had initially received. The revised BoP allowed Ferrari, still down on power in comparison to Monza, to compete on level terms with Porsche over the course of eight thrilling hours. The battle swung one way and then the other, though Porsche looked to be on top as the race entered its closing stages after a creative mid-race strategy.

What followed Pier Guidi biffing Christensen into a spin as they battled for the lead with 11 minutes remaining was, quite frankly, a mess. Pier Guidi was ordered to give back the position, slowed and then saw the Porsche duck into the pits for what was a scheduled splash. The AF Corse-run car pitted next time around, came out ahead and didn’t move over. It turned out that the order for it to do so had been rescinded.

Porsche felt robbed of the title after Pier Guidi spun Christensen out

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Porsche’s protest hinged on who was making the rapid-fire decisions: the stewards, as is dictated by FIA regulations when there is contact, or the race director? The stewards insisted that FIA rules had been adhered to. They were saying, in effect, “yes, it was us”. Here again there was a marked lack of information from officialdom.

Bahrain wasn’t the only cracking race in a GTE Pro class in which the second cars from both manufacturers were bit players. Monza was a thriller as the two championship-contending cars duked it out. The final margin of 30s in the Porsche’s favour was only the result of a late roll of the dice by Ferrari.

Estre and Jani dominated first time out at Spa. Porsche then got it wrong on tyre selection at the Portimao 8 Hours and made mistakes calling the conditions early on at Le Mans.

WRT swept to the title after winning the last three races of the year, including both Bahrain bouts

Photo by: Adrenal Media

LMP2: WRT caps dream debut year

A rival team boss mused on seeing WRT’s driver line-up that it would give the Belgian squad nowhere to hide in its debut season of LMP2. It would be unfair to name him, but his contention was based on a major misunderstanding of how a team that has won everything in the GT3 arena with Audi goes racing. WRT didn’t arrive in the class believing all the big prizes would come its way, but it left no stone unturned as it strove to win them.

The line-up of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi aboard the solo ORECA-Gibson 07 WRT fielded in the WEC was central to a successful campaign that yielded both the important prizes: the championship and class honours at Le Mans. It was the best LMP2 driver combination on paper and so it proved over the course of the season on the track. But a campaign that yielded three victories and a further podium was the product of much more than the skill of its drivers.

If there were any doubts that WRT had got on top of a new discipline and car after its Le Mans win in August, they were dispelled in Bahrain. It was pretty much dominant over two races where it opted for a tyre strategy markedly different to those of its rivals.

The 11 points Blomqvist, Vandoorne and Gelael lost when the sister Jota car driven by Antonio Felix da Costa nipped past late on to win in Portugal proved decisive in the championship battle, though there were probably too many mistakes across the season

Nor should the resourcefulness of a team steeped in endurance racing – team boss Vincent Vosse and sporting director Thierry Tassin have five wins between them in the Spa 24 Hours – be overlooked. When the airjacks failed on the winning ORECA at Le Mans, the team brought out special inflatable pillows or balloons to lift the car. Raising the car in this manner damaged the rear diffuser, which explains why Tom Blomqvist in the best of the Jota ORECAs came within a few tenths of snatching the class victory.

Frijns, Habsburg and Milesi were, of course, lucky to win the class. The sister car in which Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Yifei Ye won the European Le Mans Series title was on course for victory until it cut out a few hundred metres into the final lap. It turned out that fluid from a leaking drinks bottle had caused a short circuit. This was irrelevant in the championship battle, however: the second WRT car wasn’t eligible for points as an additional entry.

PLUS: Inside the Le Mans finish too barmy for Hollywood

Blomqvist and team-mates Stoffel Vandoorne and Sean Gelael failed to score a victory, though they came close at both Le Mans and the Algarve circuit. Their combined deficit to the winners across those two races was little more than five seconds.

The 11 points they lost when the sister car driven by Antonio Felix da Costa nipped past late on to win in Portugal proved decisive in the championship battle, though there were probably too many mistakes across the season, a double penalty at Le Mans included, for them to have deservingly won the crown.

Gelael, Vandoorne and Blomqvist were just pipped to victory at Portimao by their team-mates

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Da Costa and team-mates Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez ended up a close third in the second Jota entry. It was an impressive achievement given that the mandatory silver-rated driver in the car was Gonzalez, a 45-year-old with a day job and not a twenty-something straight off the single-seater ladder. Had they not been unclassified at Monza after an electronics problem, they would probably have ended up excruciatingly close to the title.

United Autosports’ attempts to retain the crown in a year when the LMP2s were slowed to ensure they weren’t quicker than the Hypercars went off the rails at Le Mans. Phil Hanson was leading the points at that stage with a pair of wins at Spa and Monza together with regular team-mates Filipe Albuquerque and Fabio Scherer.

It all went wrong at Le Mans when an electrical problem left them as the last classified finisher in class. The team didn’t get its title bid back on track in Bahrain after its ORECA went off the boil halfway through the first race and never came to the boil in the second. It finished fourth both times.

The new Pro-Am LMP2 sub-class for line-ups including a bronze driver was predictably won by Racing Team Nederland. It was predictable because the TDS Racing-run RTN squad was already a proven class frontrunner, winning at Fuji in 2019.

Bronze-rated Frits van Eerd ended up winning the title alone after regular team-mates Giedo van der Garde and Job van Uitert were independently ruled out of the Algarve race following positive COVID tests. Van Eerd won three times with them and once without, when Nyck de Vries returned to the line-up and Paul-Loup Chatin was brought in.

Perrodo, Nielsen and Rovera won four of the six races, including at Monza, to comfortably secure the title

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

GTE Am: Ferrari pair defend their crown

Nicklas Nielsen and Francois Perrodo reprised their 2019-20 GTE Am crown with AF Corse. There were two differences between this season and last: the first was that Alessio Rovera joined them as the silver-rated driver in the line-up after Nielsen’s upgrade to gold status mid-campaign last time; and the second was the manner of their victory. In 2019-20, Nielsen and Perrodo won two of eight races and this year they claimed four of six, Le Mans included.

Perrodo wasn’t the fastest of the bronzes, but Rovera was probably the best silver and Nielsen always starred as he anchored the team’s strategy. They also barely made a mistake between them.

A win for the Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared by Ben Keating, Felipe Fraga and Dylan Pereira in Bahrain 1 gave TF Sport an outside chance of making up for its near-miss in 2019-20. That disappeared when Keating clashed with the only other full-season Aston, the factory Prodrive-run entry, on the opening lap of the finale.

The other class winner was the AF-run Cetilar Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Giorgio Sernagiotto and Roberto Lacorte. The last-named impressed among the bronzes after stepping down from LMP2.

Autosport's top 5 LMH drivers

Lapierre was usually the quickest of the Alpine contingent

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

5. Nicolas Lapierre

Back in the top rank of the WEC after a long absence, the former Toyota driver proved that he can still compete at the highest level. That’s despite nearing 40 and taking the first steps in team management with Cool Racing. Lapierre was more often than not the fastest of the drivers in the Alpine, sometimes by a significant margin. He was probably at his best through the varied conditions at Le Mans, on the way equalling his best overall result in the French enduro.

4. Mike Conway

That he has dropped from second on this list after the 2019-20 season to fourth in 2021 has little to do with his own form. It’s more down to that of his team-mates, particularly Kobayashi’s heroics in qualifying. The Briton did what we’ve come to expect of him as he’s matured into one of the world’s top sportscar drivers: he never underperformed, didn’t make a mistake and deservedly got a Le Mans win to his name after so many near-misses. At last!

3. Jose Maria Lopez

Is seemingly still improving as a sportscar driver, which explains a higher ranking this season, his fourth with Toyota, than last. The Argentinian, now a five-time world champion, headed the averages of the Japanese manufacturer’s six drivers at Algarve and wasn’t far behind Kobayashi and Buemi at Le Mans. He was generally a tad quicker than Conway, though there normally wasn’t a lot in it – they were separated by 0.1s across the two Bahrain races.

2. Kamui Kobayashi

Was quick in the races and super-quick in qualifying. The Japanese’s acknowledged one-lap pace meant he was handed the #7 Toyota for qualifying on four occasions, and crucially grabbed the pole and the point that went with it on three of them. His mistake at Spa didn’t prove decisive in the title battle and was the result of a propensity of the GR010 to lock up its front brakes. He wasn’t the only driver to get caught out by that.

1. Sebastien Buemi

Failed to secure a hat-trick of WEC titles, though that had nothing to do with his efforts at the wheel of the #8 Toyota. Across the six races, he was the fastest of the six drivers in the Japanese manufacturer’s camp, though admittedly the margins were small. Take the Le Mans 24 Hours, for example. Using a 75-lap sample, he was 0.03s up on Kobayashi in the sister car; on the average of their best 50 laps, he was just 0.07s behind.

Buemi shaded his team-mates, though didn't win the title

Photo by: Toyota Racing

Autosport's top 5 GTE drivers

5. Alessio Rovera

The series newcomer was picked up as the new silver to drive the AF-run Ferrari that won the GTE Am crown in 2019-20. He made an immediate impact alongside bronze Perrodo and factory driver Nielsen, playing a key role in the retention of the crown. Rovera deserves a place here not just because he was the stand-out silver in the Am ranks, but also for stacking up well against Nielsen in his rookie year. His reward was a factory contract for 2022.

4. Miguel Molina

The battle for GTE Pro honours was all about the lead cars from Ferrari and Porsche, but Molina was the pick of the drivers across the two manufacturers’ second entries. He always had the measure of new full-time team-mate Serra in the #52 Ferrari, with the exception of Le Mans where the Brazilian starred. That was a rare race in which they looked well placed to mount a challenge until losing time with suspension failure.

3. James Calado

The Briton and Pier Guidi added up to the best line-up in GTE Pro in their fourth season together at the AF squad. The Italian ultimately made the headlines in the dying minutes in Bahrain and starred in the Monza shootout with Porsche, but Calado was an equal partner in their championship success. There was little between them on the way to the Le Mans victory that laid the foundations of their title glory.

2. Alessandro Pier Guidi

The stalwart Ferrari driver appears to be getting better with age: 2021 has to be one of his best seasons ever. The remit of this table only covers the WEC where he was the star driver in the Prancing Horse stable. Nowhere was that more so than Le Mans on the way to a second class victory. The Bahrain 2 incident can’t be viewed as a blot on his copybook. No one doubts him when he said it wasn’t deliberate – and it won Ferrari two titles.

1. Kevin Estre

The Frenchman tops these rankings for a third season in a row after a year in which he was pivotal in Porsche’s ultimately unsuccessful pursuit of the GTE Pro title. He could get more out of the second iteration of the mid-engined 911 RSR than any of his team-mates – witness his five poles – and, when the chips were down, could pull a rabbit out of the hat in the races. His drive in the Bahrain finale to overhaul the leading Ferrari was breathtaking.

Estre was the qualifying king of 2021 and pulled performances out of the Porsche his team-mates couldn't

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images