Why the WEC title fight isn't as close as it looks

There are a maximum of 65 points up for grabs as the 2018/19 World Endurance Championship arrives back in Europe for its final two-race leg. Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima lead their Toyota team-mates by 15 points, so you might think the title race remains wide open.

Wrong! This weekend's Spa 6 Hours is a must-win race for Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez. Should they fail to do so - and fail to close the gap on the drivers of the #8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID - they will be as good as out of range heading into the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

Not mathematically, of course, but statistically. The two Toyotas have finished one-two in every round of the WEC superseason so far (even if both cars lost their points in the scrutineering bay at Silverstone last August).

That means the championship battle is not about how many points each trio can rack up, more the number by which they can outscore their team-mates in the sister car. A win in a regular six-hour WEC race comes with 25 points, or more pertinently seven more than the 18 on offer for second place.

Kobayashi and company need that points swing to be in their favour in Belgium on Saturday. Should they fail to do so, the #7 line-up is going to be more than 20 points behind the Alonso crew heading for the series finale at Le Mans.

The exact figure — 21 or 23 points — will depend on who gets the point for pole position at Spa. And of course finishing the race.

There may be 38 points for the win at Le Mans, but the more apposite figure is the 11-point difference between the first and second positions.

The maths aren't difficult. Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez need to close the gap this weekend by beating their team-mates to the top spot and then do it all over again on June 15/16 in France.

And the sums aren't complicated by the point on offer for pole at each of the races, so long as the Toyotas finish one-two both times. Should #7 win both remaining races, its drivers would end up on 183 points. Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima would finish on 182 if they finish second and take the pole on each occasion.

There can be no certainties in motor racing, particularly not in a 24-hour race around a track made up of a mixture of permanent race track and closed public highways, one populated by a record 62 cars this year. But another brace of Toyota one-twos at Spa and Le Mans is a fair assumption to make on what we've seen so far this season. A bookmaker wouldn't give you very good odds on anything else.

The fear has always been that finishing up at Le Mans will only diminish the importance of the other WEC races

There's nothing to suggest that Rebellion, SMP Racing or anyone else is going to get on terms with Toyota over the remainder of the superseason.

And don't forget that the 0.25% margin in Toyota's favour enshrined in the original Equivalence of Technology for 2018/19 is due to be back in place at Le Mans. Toyota had FIA stability rules on its side when it came to negotiating the terms of engagement for the EoT as the rule makers unsuccessfully strove to fulfil their promise of lap-time parity for the non-hybrid privateer machinery in LMP1.

The Japanese manufacturer was happy for the good of the championship to forgo this theoretical advantage at the shorter WEC races, starting at Silverstone, but not when it came to Le Mans.

A championship battle that's already over going into Le Mans would be another blow to the WEC in what has become something much longer than just an hour of need. The issues created by having a single manufacturer racing alone at the front of the field have now been followed by intense uncertainty over the future of the top class as the debate over the hypercar concept rules for the 2020/21 season rumbles on.

Toyota might have had things all its own way at the 24 Hours last year, but its two cars did put on a show. They raced hard pretty much all the way, and if you doubt that, just find some footage of the restart after the second safety car. The way Alonso scythed through the pack using all the track and more proves just how hard the two TS050s were pushing.

I'm not sure we'd be guaranteed such an intense battle between two crews that have been evenly matched throughout the season if the championship is to all intents and purposes settled. I guess that depends on whether Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima value a second Le Mans victory over a world title.

One of the Toyota crews settling for second place would surely re-ignite the debate over the wisdom of finishing the WEC season at Le Mans. This will become the norm after the switch to the winter-series format for 2019/20. Don't forget the current superseason, incorporating two editions of the 24 Hours, is all about transitioning into the new format.

The logic goes that it will cure the post-Le Mans hangover that has blighted the WEC since its rebirth in 2012. That's a bit like saying giving up alcohol is a cure for a hangover proper. It removes the problem rather than fixing it.

The revised make-up of the season doesn't address why there has traditionally been a hangover. And that's the fact that the rest of the WEC calendar is made up of largely nondescript events that pale into insignificance when judged against its jewel in the crown in the middle of June. Putting Le Mans at the end of the championship doesn't do anything about that.

The fear has always been that finishing up at Le Mans will only diminish the importance of the other WEC races. Who's going to be buying the success ads on Monday morning, the winner of the championship or the winner of Le Mans? That has always been an easy one to answer.

But this time around, having Le Mans as the final counter could end up taking the shine off the most prestigious race on the calendar. That would be a disaster for the WEC right now. There's no one to race Toyota, so the event desperately needs the two TS050s slugging it out at the front of the field.

And to ensure that happens, Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez need to win this weekend at Spa.