Toyota GR010 Hypercar

[Tyre Smoke]

Thanks for that. Much appreciated.

I agree, Toyota seem to have gone 'all in' quite early on. Perhaps their plan was to force the hand of other manufacturers into going down the LMH route? But if LMDh is going to be as quick with BoP then it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to do anything other than LMDh, especially as you say, they can race both series from the off, can sell to customers and not spend ridiculous amounts on R+D.

[Red Firecracker]

I think the problem is that LMDh wasn't on the table to start with (see ACO and IMSA hatred), so Hypercar was the option for life after LMP1 and the OEM sign up looked to be attractive. The OEMs were part of the rule making committee and then backed out, looking specifically at you Aston Martin, even after you demanded a change in engine regs that screwed Glickenhaus, so suddenly it went from a busy category to something more akin to the death throws of LMP1, but costing more money to get there.

Then the ACO and IMSA became publically 'friendly' (world economy going down the hole) and LMDh came to the table. By that point, Toyota was in a financial commitment too big to just write off, I imagine, so they did the decent thing as ever and continued.

Interestingly though, they are being more publically vocal about the Series now, see their 'We can't see Sebring happening' response in the Autosport article on the new car. That's a change from their previous more compliant stance, I think.

I can't help thinking that maybe just being the bigger man much earlier in the process and saying "we're extending LMP1 to 2023" might have saved money and also been a better lead in to the LMDh world.

All that being said, the Toyota does look a fantastic beast and I can't wait to see it, so swings and roundabouts

[//j17]

Red Firecracker said:

I think the problem is that LMDh wasn't on the table to start with (see ACO and IMSA hatred)...

I think a lot more is being made of 'bad blood' between IMSA and the ACO/FIA than actually exists. Broadly they would like rule alignment - but also have to deliver a product that their respective customers want to buy, and what the European/Japanese teams and manufacturers (the core customer base for WEC) want isn't always the same as what the US ones (the core customer base for IMSA) want.

In the specific case of LMDh not being on the table to start with this has nothing to do with any "ACO and IMSA hatred" but dome to the much simpler fact that the two series were at different points in the class life cycle. For the ACO it was clear to the ACO a couple of years ago that LMP1 didn't have a future and needed to be replaced - but at that point IMSA had committed to teams to keep the current LMDP rules we still committed to run for another 4 or 5 years, and nobody had even started to think about what was going to happen next.

So we have the ACO needing new rules before IMSA, talking to their customers they were saying either "We want to race our road hypercars" or "We want pure race cars", which became the LMH ruleset.

Meantime the IMSA's rule life cycle rolled on and when they ask their customers "What do you want next?" they mostly said "Just an update to the cheap 'LMP2 cars in drag' we have now", which became the LMDp ruleset.

Now both the ACO and IMSA know that divergent rules work against both their best interests so have worked to balance the two sets of rules. At the moment the ACO have had to move furthest, not because IMSA has more power but because the customers who helped drive the LMH ruleset have basically pissed off into the distance leaving the ACO needing to get cars on the front of the grid! IMSA aren't committing to LMH yet, not due to some anti-ACO grump but because as much as they would love to have some of that Toyota cash flooding in they don't want it at the expense of hacking off their LMDh teams and maybe losing more money than Toyota brings in.

[mat205125]

Vette_1978 said:

I wonder if this is the inspiration for companies like Peugeot to just think, ah, we have a 908, trim bits off, lift the nose, paint it as Alpine, hey presto a hypercar. The more cars which can feasibly fight for victory is a good thing, just a shame I’d hoped for Vulcan v AMG One v One:1 v 918 v P1. Or not the actual cars but the silhouette of those cars backed by factories.

I had hoped for the same, but GT1 was ruined by people going to extremes. Then ferrari and Maserati spoiled the sports car world after that

If we ever did see a road car based renaissance, someone like Glickenhaus would ruin that too.

[LawrieC]

I'm very glad to see Toyota leading the way.

If it comes to a battle between LMH and LMDh, shame its all down to BOP

[//j17]

LawrieC said:

If it comes to a battle between LMH and LMDh, shame its all down to BOP

You'd rather have LMH cars be faster, so all the LMDh teams don't bother with WEC/Le Mans and we just have Toyota racing for the top 2 steps, and probably Alpine taking the 3rd step (as they'll actually make the end of the race)?

[LM240]

//j17 said:

LawrieC said:

If it comes to a battle between LMH and LMDh, shame its all down to BOP

You'd rather have LMH cars be faster, so all the LMDh teams don't bother with WEC/Le Mans and we just have Toyota racing for the top 2 steps, and probably Alpine taking the 3rd step (as they'll actually make the end of the race)?

I’d rather have one top class instead of this mix with artificial restrictions. BOP is never perfect. Shame it isn’t about the team who produces the best car and is allowed to run free and take a deserved win.