Why Porsche is willing to sacrifice the WEC opener

Porsche has opted to play a long game in this year's World Endurance Championship. Toyota says its commitment to winning the WEC explains why it is running in high-downforce configuration at this weekend's Silverstone series opener. The opposite decision by its rival is based on exactly the same reasoning.

There are always two ways to skin a cat. Toyota wants points in the bag, but Porsche is happy to sacrifice them in order to leave the high-downforce version of the latest 919 Hybrid in the windtunnel for another couple of months.

Porsche's strategy called for it to focus its resources on its package for the Le Mans 24 Hours rather than developing two aero configurations more or less in parallel. The idea is to then hit the ground running with what might be termed the 'sprint' version of the car when the WEC resumes at the Nurburgring in mid-July after the French enduro.

It's not quite the new strategy that you might think, but one that has been reinforced by new rules for 2017. In the name of cost reduction, the remaining LMP1 manufacturers are allowed just two aerodynamic configurations per season. And once the spec of each is homologated ahead of its first race, it is effectively frozen. That means the Toyota TS050 HYBRID you'll see at Silverstone this weekend will be the same as the one that races at the Nurburgring.

In the previous two WEC seasons, Porsche has turned up for the British round with an update of the high-downforce package that had graced the 919 at the end of the previous year and then brought on stream the all-singing, all-dancing version after Le Mans. That's not a strategy available now courtesy of the new rule.

The idea of bringing the all-new 'sprint' aero out for the Nurburgring did serve Porsche well in those years, however. Think back to 2015, and Porsche's first world sportscar title in 29 years. There were no limitations on the number of bodykits two years ago and the German squad introduced a new high-downforce package for the Nurburgring round (pictured below) after Le Mans. It wouldn't be beaten over the remainder of the season.

Former Porsche LMP1 technical director Alex Hitzinger had suggested that a clean sweep of the final five races of the season was a distinct possibility. Not publicly, of course, but he made the prediction at a team meeting the week after its first Le Mans triumph for 20 years. He was bang on the money as Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley swept to the title.

That version of the second-generation 919 ran what was internally known as 'kit 5'. That gives an indication of the scope of the aerodynamic development that Porsche undertook over the course of the season. It also explains why new rules were introduced for 2016 to cap that development in the name of cost saving, initially by pegging the manufacturers back to three aero specs.

So Porsche's strategy isn't as outlandish as it might seem. It's based, loosely, on past practice that worked. Audi was planning to go down the same route. Had it been on the grid this weekend, it would have been running in a low-downforce configuration like Porsche.

Unlike Porsche, it was happy to makes its intentions clear a long time ago. (So long, of course, that they were superseded by decisions made in the boardroom.) Audi's technical staff argued that resources needed to be focused on the Le Mans kit and starting the season with two separate aero packages wasn't an option.

Porsche knows its performance this weekend will be severely compromised in the fast corners that proliferate around the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit - Abbey, Copse, Becketts, Stowe and the like. But it clearly believes the sacrifice is worth making in the name of the bigger championship picture.

How much of a sacrifice in terms of lap time will remain unknown to the outside world ahead of first practice on Friday. We don't know how the low-downforce Porsche stacks up against the high-downforce Toyota, though the two factory participants in the WEC must have some idea given that the two 2017 LMP1s did test together in those configurations over the winter at Aragon in Spain.

We're expecting a much more competitive TS050 in high-downforce trim this year; Toyota is saying that the two versions of its car are much closer together in terms of aero performance. That's got to be bad news for Porsche as far as this weekend goes, but a big sacrifice in terms of lap time can result in only a relatively small one in terms of points.

There are no certainties in motor racing, let alone a six-hour race being fought out by heavily revised cars at the start of a season, but Toyota must go into the event as a clear favourite. Yet even if Toyota takes a one-two, Porsche is not going to lose an awful lot of ground to its rival in the championship table now that only two manufacturers remain in LMP1.

Porsche's 2017 plan calls for it to take its Le Mans cars to round two of the WEC at Spa next month. There it will race against the two full-season TS050s with 'sprint' bodywork, though the additional Toyota entered for the Belgian event and Le Mans will be in high-downforce trim.

Spa is a very different circuit to Silverstone and much closer to the Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans in its demands. The jury is out on which is the best way forward for Belgium. Both manufacturers are repeating their 2016 strategies and both reckoned they should have won there 12 months ago. If you remember, Toyota was hit by engine problems and the Webber/Bernhard/Hartley Porsche by two punctures, which contrived to allow Audi to take a fortuitous victory.

Spa might provide an intriguing battle, but I'm not sure Silverstone will. That's a problem for the WEC right now.

Its all-important cost-saving rules are out of kilter with the calendar. The presence of the circuit that requires more downforce than any other on the calendar at the start of the season causes the manufacturers a problem when all they want to be doing is preparing for Le Mans.

So here's an idea. The WEC grid turned up at Monza a couple of weeks ago for the official pre-season test, the so-called 'prologue', and the weather happened to be quite nice. My weather forecasts suggests that won't be the case for Silverstone this weekend.

Starting the season at a track that doesn't demand high levels of downforce would make sense, especially as it lies multiple degrees of latitude to the south of Silverstone. Then we could move the British round of the WEC to the summer and, I'm sure, get a much bigger crowd of sportscar fans wanting to relive their Le Mans experiences of a couple of months before.

I'm not sure we're going to get much of a race at the front of the WEC field this weekend. The manufacturers have to do what they think is best in their dual bids for Le Mans and WEC silverware. So you can't fault Porsche for bringing a car that in all probability won't be able to compete for the win.

Not unless you want to lay the blame for the latest aero rules at the door of the dominant 'kit 5'.