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WEC's EoT mission is impossible and unnecessary

Despite promises to give the privateers a chance, Toyota has dominated the first part of the 2018 World Endurance Championship. Rule tweaks have been made for Silverstone as a result, but will they work and does it actually matter if they don't?

Gary Watkins Aug 17, 2018, 11:57 AM

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.

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Author Gary Watkins

Gary Watkins has, for reasons best known to himself, devoted all his working life to covering sportscar racing. This season is his 33rd as a motorsport journalist, during which time he has reported on major long-distance events on four continents and approaching 80 24-hour races. He reckons a degree in political philosophy makes him well qualified for covering the sometimes Machiavellian world of international sportscars.

Gary, who also writes for Motor Sport, Autocourse, RACER and others, lives in Surbiton close to the former workshops of the Cooper Formula 1 team but spends more time on the road than at home for most of the year.