Wurz: Toyota's ace in the hole

Peugeot's withdrawal from sports car racing has been a massive blow for Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship, but the good news is that Toyota has arrived to give Audi some competition, even if this year is one of learning.

The anchorman for the Toyota project is Alex Wurz, who arrived at the Japanese marque after four years with Peugeot. A two-time Le Mans winner with vast technical knowledge, he's the perfect man for the job of helping to get the new programme on the right track.

Wurz began his relationship with the Vingt-Quatre Heures back in 1996, when as a virtual unknown he won the race for Porsche. He became one of the few drivers to win on his debut - and, at 22, also the youngest.

"It's been a long time," he smiles. "Back then, I was a young guy from Formula 3. I'd won lots of races, and you think you can rock up to Le Mans and win it, just like in F3. I didn't appreciate it, but now I realise how much effort goes into the race."

Wurz had an insight into just how hard it is over his four years with Peugeot, a period that he thoroughly enjoyed. His win with Marc Gene and David Brabham three years ago was the highlight.

Wurz was a virtual unknown when he won for Porsche in 1996 © LAT

"Le Mans is cool and frustrating all at once," he says, "because every year I was leading the race at one point. In the first year, we were unlucky with a gearbox part that broke when we were 2m30s in the lead, and we were clearly the fastest car. In 2009, we won - hip, hip hooray!

"Then, in 2010, we were the fastest car again, but we had technical issues at the beginning of the race. Then the engine blew up after 22 hours and 30 minutes when we were P2 and catching the leader. Last year was very frustrating for me because it was the one and only mistake I've made in four years with Peugeot. We were 17s behind the leader in P3 and on a different strategy when I kissed the tyre barrier in the Indianapolis corner. That lost us a lap. I'm still upset about that mistake every day."

The 2011 season was the busiest of Wurz's Peugeot career. In addition to Le Mans, he also took part in the events at Sebring, Spa and Road Atlanta. A similarly busy schedule was theoretically on offer for 2012, but during the summer the Toyota opportunity began to come into focus.

Although Wurz had some contact with Toyota in his Williams days during 2007, the connection that made it happen stretched back to his time as a McLaren test driver. In those days, he worked closely with top Michelin man Pascal Vasselon, who is now technical chief at Toyota.

"I knew Pascal from the DTM," says Wurz, "and then we had a very close working relationship at McLaren when they had a Michelin test car. So we basically we did years of tyre development together. Actually, the conversation became more intense over a few glasses of red wine when he came to do a lecture at the FIA Young Driver Academy.

Wurz had an offer to stay at Peugeot, but Toyota proved too tempting to resist © LAT

"We had a high-performance workshop, and in the evening we were sitting and talking a bit. Then he dropped a few hints, so I realised what was happening, and I dropped a few hints about my contract situation. After that, it all evolved quite quickly.

"That was in August. Then we were both waiting for the green light from Tokyo, which was delayed by the tsunami. We agreed on terms and everything, so when the green light came we just had to put a signature on a contract, and that's what we did."

It wasn't easy to turn down the chance to stay at Peugeot, says the driver. "I was in the lucky position to have an offer from both teams," he explains. "I really loved the Peugeot car and the team, and I had a good time there.

"Basically, I looked, and it was an ex-F1 team with a wind tunnel in-house, with Toyota pushing on the edge of new technology, extremely hard. And the rules are clearly in favour of hybrid technology. Also it's a new manufacturer coming in, so the lifecycle would be longer than the Peugeot one. These were the points that made me decide to take up the offer. And I turned out to be the lucky one."

It proved a wise move to have considered the lifecycle of the Peugeot programme, because some weeks after Wurz opted for Toyota the French manufacturer announced its withdrawal, leaving Alex's former colleagues high and dry.

"I feel sorry for all the guys involved," he says. "I had a really good time with Peugeot. Its withdrawal is not good for the series, or the entire sport. Peugeot was in motorsport for so many years. It was in rallying, it was in sportscars, it was in F1 - it was always there, and now it's completely gone."

The appeal for Alex in joining Toyota was to be in at the start of a fascinating and ambitious programme.

Nakajima will join Wurz and Lapierre when available in 2012 © LAT

"Toyota had always said that Kazuki Nakajima would be in the team with me, because he has a long-term contract with the company," says Wurz. "And I'm very happy with him, and also with Nicolas Lapierre. That was the first core team they created. Then, with the withdrawal of Peugeot, they wanted to make more numbers, more factory LMP1 cars, so they brought a second car. It was quite difficult, because we are not on a massive budget. It's quite streamlined, so bringing a second car was quite an achievement.

"Honestly, my first conversation with the team started with them offering maybe one race at the end of the season, or maybe Le Mans and one other race. But it just got more and more. I'm quite pleased that we have more races, but then of course we had one accident that lost us the Spa race.

"From now on, we're going to take part in each race of the championship with one car - that's what Toyota confirmed. I think they'll run two cars in Fuji in their home race, and who knows what else. But they've confirmed Nicolas and me for all the championship rounds, and when Kazuki is available, he will join us. Sometimes we will be two, sometimes three."

As the project developed, Wurz became a regular visitor to Toyota's Cologne factory, running in the simulator and offering the benefit of his experience wherever he could. "You run through detailed stuff," he says. "You run through the race histories, how decisions are made in terms of development, tyre development, the race strategies, and try to bring in all the know-how that you've picked up in the past."

Most of the early testing was conducted at Paul Ricard circuit in the south of France, and Alex was impressed by the way things came together relatively smoothly.

"I've seen the progress they've made," he says, "and the enormous time pressure they were under, because the programme was started quite late. I could instantly see that they were always working against deadlines and time pressure, but they did that quite well.

The team was buzzing at the first test at Paul Ricard

"The first test was exciting. You could see that the guys who had been racing for Toyota for years and were put on hold after F1 stopped were just buzzing to go back on the race track to do something. That was quite nice to feel. It was 2am, and we were still doing the seat fittings and mucking around with details. No one said, 'Let's go home'. They were just happy to be in a position to bring a car to the race track.

"As usual with a new car, you see that you have things that you instantly have to improve. But some things worked extremely well from the word go. It was very encouraging - with the base and the aero. I was happy to start to push quite quickly."

The one major blow was the heavy test crash at Ricard for Lapierre. The chassis was written off, and plans for the car to make its debut at Spa were abandoned.

"It was the fast double right-hander after Signes," explains Wurz. "There were some electronic problems that caused the car to go straight off the track and hit the barrier. There was some chassis damage, and that lost us one month of development."

The acid test was the Le Mans test day, when Toyota finally met Audi on the same track at the same time.

"Until that point, we really didn't know where we stood," says Wurz, "and in testing we were using different circuit configurations. So the test day was basically the first time we'd met the competition.

"Everything was quite cool. We did more laps than the programme said, which was an achievement, and I was very happy. Being realistic, and thinking back to when I signed the contract, I would have expected to be further away than we were."

The technical challenge Toyota has faced in honing the hybrid system cannot be underestimated, and Wurz has enjoyed the challenge of being involved.

"It's a very ambitious programme in terms of the technology with the hybrid," he says. "It's completely integrated in the drivetrain - not just an extra battery set like KERS in F1. There was a lot of work to be done.

"The big difference is that F1 has 10 per cent of what we can do, and we can do it per braking period, instead of just per lap. So it's a massive hybrid system. We have capacitors and not batteries. Don't ask me what the difference is, but they are much faster in charging and discharging."

The system provides the drivers with plenty of food for thought.

"In F1, when the charging is finished during braking, it changes the brake balance quite a lot. What they do to not upset the brake balance too much is when the braking is finished, and if the brake balance is changing, they use the combustion engine to push under braking - or not push, but make the brake balance linear. It's a bit strange that you want to recover energy, but you're burning the other source of energy to have a stable brake balance. It's not ideal, but it's a quick fix.

"If you do a proper hybrid system, to save the most energy and not waste it, you vary the amount of recovery from the electric motor, so that you have linear braking. You are only using the discs to adjust the brake balance, because the main braking is happening with the electric motor. We don't use the combustion energy to help the brake balance, so that saves us a few per cent of fuel per lap.

"But that makes things quite complicated if you go into the details of downshifting and so on. There are a few things I can't tell you, but it's a completely new way of setting up a race car. It's very interesting. It's like opening a can of worms, but I like it because you have to really think about lots of details."

So what of Le Mans? It's obvious that this is going to be a learning year for Toyota, and even getting one car to the finish will be a huge achievement. Realistically the race is Audi's to lose.

"The Audis do run like clockwork," admits Wurz, "and they have four cars, so mathematically their chances are high. But you have to start somewhere. We wanted to start at Spa, and now it turns out we start at Le Mans, so the task is pretty difficult.

"Ideally, we'll come out of the weekend having learned a lot, and having shown Audi that we are serious competitors by maybe putting pressure on them at the beginning of the race. We'll see how life evolves, and take the maximum learning curve. And finishing the race is how you learn the most."

Can Toyota gain by running longer between stops?

"Everyone wants to know that!" he laughs. "The key question is how many laps can we do more than them? Depending on how many safety cars there are, it might actually play into our hands if we run reliably.

"If you are in the ballpark [keeping the gap to] one second, it can play into the hands of the slower guy. But that means you would have to run 24 hours on the pace, very reliably, without any issues. That would be incredible for us."