Toyota Racing have become the last LMP1-H constructor to unveil their 2014 World Endurance Championship machine after today revealing their TS040.
To keep the whole thing confusing, Toyota have gone down yet another route with their hybrid system, using 6 of the 8Mega Joules (MJ) available to teams – that’s four more MJ than Audi but two less than Porsche.
Indeed their system will provide a four wheel drive power train with motor generators on the front and rear axles providing kinetic energy to put in 420HP to the 580HP from the car’s 3.7 Litre V8.
Pascal Vasselon, Technical Director said: “We started the initial studies and simulations immediately when the ACO announced the first elements of the regulations in mid-2012 and last season we devoted a lot of our available resources to developing the TS040 HYBRID. In terms of the aerodynamics and chassis concept, the TS040 HYBRID is a deep evolution of the TS030 HYBRID, taking into account the new dimensions as set by the regulations and implementing the lessons we learned in the last two years of WEC competition.”
In order to stick to the regimented energy usage per three lap stint at Le Mans – and to conform to the regulations stating the cars have to be 10cm narrower- the car has substantially less drag than the TS030 whilst being more efficient.
There will be two cars carrying the Toyota badge in this year’s WEC, with the driver line ups for the #7 and the #8 being slightly reshuffled. Nicolas Lapierre and Stephane Sarrazin have swapped from their initially trios with Lapierre joining Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi and Sarrazin joining Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima.
