The time where Toyota Gazoo Racing can win without much opposition is most likely over.
At least there has been made further steps to slow them down, when the first round of the 2019/20 season will be run this weekend at Silverstone in Great Britain.
When the teams raced at Spa Francorchamps, the Toyota TS050 – Hybrid would have to weight 904 kg. Rebellion Racing were allowed to run at 824 kg, whereas SMP Racing would have to run at minimum 833 kg. The difference was that the turbo charged engines would have to weight a little more than the natural aspirated ones.
The weights at Le Mans were 888, 816 and 833 kg respectively.
At the Barcelona Prologue i.e. the prelude to the 2019/20 season, we had Rebellion Racing back to 824, while Ginetta – who runs the same AER turbo engine as SMP Racing did, had 833. Toyota had gotten another block of led to carry around, sending them up on 918 kg, as their minimum weight.
After having analysed the data from these test days for about one month, a new EOT has been released, resulting in Toyota having to run 932 kg in the car, while the non-hybrids will remain unchanged.
That’s on top of the previously announced restrictions on their pitstops, where the hybrid cars will have to stand still for one more second than the non-hybrids, due to the advantage of starting on their electric hybrid systems compared to an old-fashioned starter motor, having to burst an internal combustion engine into life. On top of that, their advantage of being able to run one extra lap on each fuel stint, should be gone too.
So if we look at a whole 12 months back, to Silverstone last time around, we have Toyota Gazoo Racing a total of 54 kg heavier, slower pitstops, and shorter stints.
Well – it’s probably impossible to hamper them even more than that – or that would perhaps be demanding them to tow a caravan around…
But you have to remember that there will be BOP during the season, in relation to the points that a team scores. And that’s no matter if it’s Rebellion, Ginetta or Toyota on top of the results – weight has to go into the cars. Except Le Mans, where they will return to EOT only.
All this changes will hopefully bring some close racing between the six LMP1 cars, when the first round of the FIA WEC 2019/20 will be run at Silverstone.
Ginetta on Pole at their home circuit? Weird things have happened before in motorsport…