Why Ferrari's Le Mans glory proved an outlier as Toyota dominated the WEC

Humility. That was a word oft on the lips of the newcomers to the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class as the much-vaunted golden era of sportscar racing began in earnest. They would stay humble, insisted Ferrari, Porsche et al as they took on Toyota, the acknowledged king of the series. Prescient words they were, because the Japanese manufacturer swept all before it, winning six out of seven rounds. The one exception, however, was the race that truly mattered. 

Ferrari’s victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours was the story of the season. It wasn’t just that the most prestigious sportscar marque of them all triumphed in the centenary running of the French enduro on its comeback with a factory prototype after 50 years, nor that it was a thrilling race worthy of the occasion. Le Mans was a hinge in the narrative of the season.  

The Balance of Performance, one of the essential building blocks of the top class of the WEC, underscored a plot line that went something like this. A new BoP system is introduced for 2023; it clearly favours an established player in the series and is then unilaterally changed for the important race in the summer because the powers that be aren’t happy that Toyota is dominating; Ferrari wins the Big One, and then gets pegged back straight afterwards and Toyota continues on its winning way.

That’s the simplified version. The end result was that Toyota waltzed to 1-2 in the points and a fifth straight drivers’ and manufacturers’ points double. Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa won two races to the four of team-mates Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, yet retained their title by 27 points.

Toyota barely looked like losing victory at any of the regular six or eight-hour rounds. Margins of two laps at Sebring and one in the Algarve proved too big for the rulemakers. The FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest described the changes as a “correction” because the performance differentials between the Le Mans Hypercar machinery from Toyota, Ferrari and Peugeot had been “greater than initially anticipated”. It sounded like code for “Toyota is too successful and/or fast”. 

There was no scope to change the balance between the Toyota and the Ferrari, or any of the other Le Mans Hypercars, prior to Le Mans in the latest guidelines as written. The new system was based on simulation and an assessment of each car’s potential, with one of the key aims being the removal of any encouragement to sandbag. There was now nothing to gain by holding back in the early-season races to get a favourable BoP for Le Mans.

Only the so-called platform BoP, the balance between the LMHs and the newly arrived LMDh machinery from Cadillac and Porsche, could change before the French classic, and then only once after two races. Wider changes to what was known as the manufacturer BoP were due to come only after Le Mans.  

Photo by: Andreas Beil

Ferrari toppled Toyota at Le Mans after changes to the BoP forced through by the organisers

Any change outside of the new system in theory should have needed the unanimous agreement of the participants, which was never likely to be forthcoming given that a platform change for Spa appears to have been shouted down. So the FIA and the ACO just changed the BoP anyway.

The ACO got what it wanted, needed even, on its big occasion, a sell-out event. It got the ‘right’ winner in a Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar, the #51 car driven by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi, as well as a classic race that went down to the wire. Each of the five major car makers now represented in Hypercar led, while Ferrari and Toyota battled into the penultimate hour.

For all the controversy about Ferrari’s win and the helping hand it received, the race could easily have gone the other way. The #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH of Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa was moving in on the winning Ferrari in the closing stages – the track appeared to be coming to Toyota. Hartley had closed to within nine seconds before handing over to Hirakawa for the run to the flag. The Japanese driver was then caught out by a brake balance that had been wound rearwards. Damage in the resulting spin at Arnage was relatively light, but Toyota’s challenge was over. Hirakawa crossed the line 80s in arrears. 

PLUS: How Ferrari scored a historic victory at Le Mans

That was significantly less than the 2m30s that Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon reckoned the BoP changes cost the GR010 over the 24 hours. It would be overly simplistic to say that Ferrari won as a result of the BoP revisions, because the top two each encountered minor delays through the race. But that didn’t stop Toyota big boss Akio Toyoda proclaiming that “we lost to politics”.

The one-time major BoP change affecting all the manufacturers came on schedule after Le Mans and ahead of Monza in July. Ferrari was undoubtedly a loser. Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina finished second on home ground in the #50 499P, though the slender 16s margin to the winning Toyota owed much to three safety cars. That would be as close as Ferrari would get to another victory. 

Was the revised BoP for the Ferrari an admission by the rulemakers that they’d got it wrong at Le Mans? Or perhaps they got it all too right with exactly the result they wanted. It was easy to be cynical about the BoP machinations this season. 

For all the finger pointing and Toyota’s domination of the regular races, it is important to remember that the GR010 was the proven car in the field. Ergo it was going to be the closest to its potential. This was its third season, and it had undergone a second significant upgrade under the ‘evo joker’ rules that put strict limits on development during the lifecycle of a Hypercar contender. 

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Toyota's package was more developed than that of its rivals, as it won all the regular season rounds with the #8 crew of Buemi, Hirakawa and Hartley claiming the title

The revisions for 2023 were aimed at making the GR010 a more ‘raceable’ machine. It certainly was that in comparison with the rest of the field. Where it really scored over its rivals, Ferrari included, was in consistency through a double stint on a set of Michelin tyres, which now couldn’t be pre-heated before going on the car. (It was a controversial rule change that was reversed for one race only at Le Mans after an outcry post-Spa following a spate of accidents in cold and damp conditions.)

Tyre degradation is always less of a factor around Le Mans; much of the 8.47-mile Circuit de la Sarthe is made up of straights, remember. Ferrari was never a match for Toyota in this department, and certainly never hid its struggles. A levelling of the playing field in this respect was undoubtedly a significant factor in Ferrari’s victory at Le Mans. 

Ferrari and its AF Corse factory team left France looking like it might be able to mount a bid for the championship. Calado and his team-mates in #51 were only 25 points behind the drivers of the #8 Toyota. That challenge never materialised, and they slipped behind the sister car in the final reckoning after #50 put Ferrari back on the podium in Bahrain following the team’s only race without silverware at Fuji. 

A challenge from Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez did materialise, even though they reckoned their chances were slim after heading into the final three races 41 points in arrears following a non-finish at Le Mans when the Japanese driver received a double hit from behind in a confused lead-up to an 80km/h Slow Zone. So much of a long shot did it look that Conway, pre-Monza, was talking about having to play a back-up role to help the drivers in #8. 

It didn’t turn out like that. Back-to-back wins for the Brit and his team-mates along with a series of problems for #8 in Italy gave a crew that was generally the faster of the two at Toyota a sniff of the title heading for the Bahrain finale. The scent became that little bit fainter after qualifying, when pole for Hartley meant the championship leaders only had to finish third to retain their crown in the event of #7 winning. When Conway was tipped into a spin at the first corner by Earl Bamber’s locked-up Cadillac, the destination of the title seemed set. 

A statistic more telling than the 4-2 win tally in favour of #7 was the number of major delays that left a Toyota down the order at the finish: two for #7 and one for #8. In addition to the Le Mans retirement, the runners-up were hit in Portugal by a problem with one of the driveshaft torque sensors mandated by the rulemakers. Toyota had to cut power dramatically to keep the car within the prescribed torque curve. The car could only trail home ninth. 

New protocols were introduced as a result, which meant that when the problem reoccured for #7 in Bahrain the performance drop was not nearly so significant. That a problem that had never before reared its head in a race for Toyota should reoccur on #7 was indicative of its drivers’ luck in 2023. 

It would be wrong to say, however, that #7 had a monopoly on misfortune within the Toyota camp. The sister car was penalised three times at Monza – two driving infractions for Buemi, only one of which looked merited, and then an addition of 50s post-race when the car was found to have gone over the maximum permissible power output. There was also the pitstop that coincided with a Full Course Yellow that arguably cost them victory at Sebring.

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez won more races than the sister #8 crew but couldn't recover from misfortune in Portugal and Le Mans

Next best after Toyota and Ferrari over the full season was Cadillac with its solo V-Series.R LMDh entered by Chip Ganassi Racing and driven by Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook. The American car was definitely number three in the Hypercar pecking order at the start of the season, and wasn’t far off the podium in either of the first two races. 

The highlight of the season for what was largely an all-new team operating out of Germany came at Le Mans, where Bamber and co finished third, only a lap down on the top two. It would have been closer but for lubrication problems that required a top-up of oil at every stop from as early as the third hour. 

Caddy might have been in the fight with Ferrari and Toyota at Le Mans, though. The extra Ganassi entry that crossed over from the IMSA SportsCar Championship for the French enduro was among the very quickest in the hands of Sebastien Bourdais. Only what might be described as a messy race limited the car he shared with Renger van der Zande and Scott Dixon to fourth.

Cadillac’s season went off the boil after Le Mans. It looked like there might be a return to form at the season finale: Lynn qualified third, and he and his team-mates appeared well placed to take advantage of the way the car looked after its tyres, one of its key strengths, only for Bamber to get it wrong at the first corner. 

Porsche endured a difficult start to the season with its 963. The thing was neither quick nor reliable at the get-go. There was a podium at the second time of asking in the WEC for Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer at the Portimao 6 Hours that owed more to the high rate of attrition than its pace, and then flashes of speed during a difficult Le Mans. It wasn’t until after the two-month break between Monza and Fuji that the Porsche Penske Motorsport factory team appeared to have turned the corner. 

The US squad with a European base in Germany appeared to have overcome the braking instability that was at the root of its woes. The #6 car led for four hours in Japan, thanks in part to a chaotic first corner and a cheekily opportunistic move from Vanthoor. Had there not been a refuelling glitch – described as an operational issue – after the pre-grid reconnaissance laps that enforced some drastic fuel saving by its drivers, they might have got in among the Toyotas. 

A Porsche was in the fight for another podium in Bahrain, but this time it was the customer Jota car shared by Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye. Jota got its 963 in time for Spa in April, and then held Porsche to its promise that a customer car could be a match for the works machines. Ye was outstanding at Le Mans in mixed conditions on Saturday evening, admittedly before overstepping and going off. Fourth in the final race was further proof that an independent can now challenge the might of the factories. Proton Competition, which debuted its 963 at Monza, showed flashes of form, too.

Photo by: Porsche

Porsche customer cars run by Jota (pictured) and Proton were able to mix it with the factory Penske 963s

Glickenhaus Racing did both of those things in 2022, witness its Le Mans podium but, against more manufacturers and with a car that undertook not a single testing mile between seasons, it wasn’t a contender this time. What Glickenhaus did do, however, was get both its Pipo-engined 007 LMHs to the finish at the 24 Hours, and in sixth and seventh positions ahead of Porsche and Peugeot. Not bad for an impecunious garagiste, reckoned team boss Jim Glickenhaus, who has now called time on his WEC involvement. 

The ByKolles team, now competing as Vanwall Racing, debuted its Vandervell 680 after getting a WEC entry at the second time of asking. The minnow of the Hypercar field hardly distinguished itself in terms of pace or reliability, though it has to be said that the car was beautifully made. The team could never get the power it was allowed under the BoP out of its normally aspirated V8, and will swap to an undisclosed turbo engine for its projected 2024 campaign. 

Peugeot began the season with an abject performance at the Sebring 1000 Miles and ended it with the announcement over the weekend of the Bahrain finale that it was giving up on the avant-garde concept of the 9X8 LMH. In between times there were flashes of promise – a starring performance at Le Mans and a podium at Monza – but the conclusion reached by the French manufacturer was that the car as it stood couldn’t be competitive on a consistent basis.  

The near-50/50 weight distribution and the same size wheels and tyres all round that allowed it to opt against running a conventional rear wing put the traction-limited car at a disadvantage at all but the quickest circuits. The Balance of Performance never fully came to its rescue, even when the front axle minimum deployment speed was reduced from 150km/h (around 90mph) to 135km/h for Fuji and Bahrain in the post-Le Mans BoP. It simply wasn’t enough to compensate for having less rubber on the road at the rear. 

It is incorrect to say that Peugeot got it wrong. When it started work on the 9X8 it had to be designed around the 31cm-wide tyres as per the original LMH regulations. That changed as part of the convergence process to align the performance of LMH and LMDh machinery. Toyota successfully argued that the late reduction of the minimum weight for LMH from 1080kg to 1040kg for a four-wheel-drive car compromised the weight distribution of the GR010. It was allowed to swap to the 29/34 option for 2022. The 9X8 was already in build when the decision came. 

The 9X8 had shown signs of promise over the three races it contested post-Le Mans in 2022, but it was nowhere around the bumpy Sebring International Raceway. Worse still, both cars were in trouble early doors. A problem with the gearshift actuation that had been identified over the winter hit both cars in the space of an hour. A fix – a move from electric to hydraulic activation – was already in the pipeline and came on stream for Portimao. 

The Portuguese race was probably Peugeot’s third best race of the season, though the 9X8 wasn’t anything approaching competitive until Le Mans. The car starred in the mixed conditions of the first half of the race, the #94 car shared by Gustavo Menezes, Loic Duval and Nico Muller leading the race and running in the top three for a protracted period until the first-named went off. 

The sister #93 car driven by Paul di Resta, Jean-Eric Vergne and Mikkel Jensen looked good for a top-five until problems with the power steering and front splitter intervened in the closing stages. This crew notched up the 9X8’s first and so far only podium (above) at Monza after the post-Le Mans BoP on another occasion that Peugeot led a race. On the Fuji and Bahrain circuits, where slow corners proliferate, the 9X8 was nowhere again. The decision to change tack was inevitable.  

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

BoP changes were never sufficient to bring Peugeot into the fight, and major changes are expected to its package in 2024

WRT on top as LMP2 bids farewell

LMP2 bowed out of the WEC in 2023 – it will only be back for Le Mans from now on – and WRT bowed out of P2 ahead of its move to the Hypercar ranks with BMW. It did so with style, regaining the world title it had won in 2021. Champions Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz and Rui Andrade won three times and only once finished off the podium. 

None of their rivals in the 11-car field had anything approaching such a consistent season. In fact, no other driver combination won more than once or scored more than three podiums. Kubica and Deletraz, in their third season together, were always among the fastest in class. Andrade wasn’t necessarily among the quickest of the Silver drivers mandated in each car line-up, but the Angolan was a solid performer who didn’t make mistakes. 

Some good fortune inevitably went the way of the champions and their ORECA-Gibson 07. They sealed the title with a win in Bahrain when victory should have gone to team-mates Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Sean Gelael. A seized wheelnut lost them victory at the final pitstop. United Autosports would tell you that it could or should have beaten Kubica, Deletraz and Andrade at Fuji after its two cars led all bar 20 of the 219 laps.

On the other hand, the WRT drivers might say that they were unlucky at Le Mans. And did. They were among those who pointed an accusing finger at the Polish Inter Europol squad that claimed victory ahead of them with Albert Costa, Fabio Scherer and Jakub Smiechowski.

The accusers argued that the remarkable thing about the victory was not Scherer driving through the pain of a fracture and ligament damage in his foot, sustained when he was hit by another car in the pitlane, but by the acceleration and fuel consumption of the Inter Europol ORECA. Nothing untoward was ever found, but the investigation by the FIA and the ACO lasted into July. The 50 points secured at Le Mans was a big contribution to a score that gave Costa, Scherer and Smiechowski second in the class points at the season’s end.

United Autosports endured torrid bad luck in its unsuccessful attempt to win back the title it claimed in 2019-20. A loose in-car camera that pushed the kill switch into the off position on the ORECA shared by Tom Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis and Josh Pierson when leading at Sebring set the tone for the season. They were dominating proceedings at the time the car was stranded. 

United scored its only win in the Algarve with Jarvis, Pierson and Giedo van der Garde when Blomqvist was on IMSA duty. Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson and Freddie Lubin took a maximum at Sebring after finishing second to the Jota ORECA of Stevens, Ye and David Beckmann, which ran in the first two races prior to the arrival of the team’s Porsche and wasn’t eligible for points.

Photo by: Andy Chan

Andrade, Deletraz and Kubica claimed the final WEC LMP2 title with WRT after a consistent campaign

Corvette crew cruise to GTE Am crown

Corvette Racing stayed on in the WEC after its maiden full-season campaign in 2022 in the last year of GTE Pro. It made sense to continue in GTE Am to keep a foot in the camp and to learn about working with customers in advance of the arrival of its Z06 GT3.R in 2024. There should be no surprise that its full factory team dominated proceedings, and it helped that it had by far and away the best drivers. 

Ben Keating was consistently the best Bronze-rated driver, just as he had been in seasons past. WEC newcomer Nico Varrone was on average the best Silver, so much so that he’s now been upgraded to Gold and landed himself a Chevrolet factory deal. The undoubted talents of Nicky Catsburg, the pro in the line-up, were barely a talking point over the course of the season. His team-mates, who generally drove before him, did much of the heavy lifting. The Dutchman was, however, exceptional when he needed to be, Le Mans included.

The Corvette won the opening two races, finished second at Spa, and then gave Keating a second straight Le Mans class win. Fourth place at Monza was enough to give him and his team-mates the title with two races to run. 

Corvette’s major rival was the Iron Dames line-up of Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Sarah Bovy, especially when it came to qualifying. Keating or Bovy won the qualifying battle fought out by the Bronze drivers in six of the seven races. The all-female crew in the Porsche 911 RSR run by Iron Lynx was unable to convert its qualifying form into a race win until the Bahrain finale. Even then a belated victory for the crew in the last ever race for cars built to the GTE rules owned much to the misfortune encountered by the TF/D’Station and NorthWest AMR/Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GTEs that finished second and third. 

Consistent finishing on the part of the Iron Dames was enough to give them second in the points ahead of Thomas Flohr, Davide Rigon and Francesco Castellacci, who took the victory laurels at Fuji aboard their AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE. 

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Iron Dames provided the sternest test, but Corvette Racing had a clear edge in the GTE Am battle