CleanMPG Forums - Toyota’s Hybrid Racing Program Builds upon Lessons Learned at Le Mans

Upcoming Six Hours of Silverstone will be the Hybrids second outing as team gains experience with the new hybrid race car.

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Wayne Gerdes - CleanMPG - Aug 10, 2012

A menacing shape in the form of Toyota Racing’s TS030 HYBRID makes its UK LMP1 racing debut in the WEC Six Hours of Silverstone this weekend for the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The team’s first outing showed promise with a strong performance at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June where it actually led the mighty Quattro Audi turbo-diesels and turbo-diesel hybrids for short periods. Unfortunately a severe accident and technical problems saw both Toyota's sidelined well before the finish.

At Silverstone, the team will field just one car; the No 7 driven by Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima. Their team-mate Anthony Davidson is still recovering from his horrific accident Le Mans.

Toyota stated they have used their state of the art wind tunnel simulations located at the Toyota Motorsport’s base in Cologne, Germany to sharpen the car’s aerodynamics to better suit Silverstone’s 3.66-mile Grand Prix circuit, generating more downforce then at Le Mans.

The drivers also fine-tuned the TS030 HYBRID’s handling with sessions in TMG’s driving simulator, which accurately recreates car behavior and the specific character and demands of the Silverstone track.

There will be four designated braking zones at Silverstone where the TS030 HYBRID will be able to recover up to 500Kj of energy, to be stored in super capacitors for automatic release as a power boost later in the lap.

Yoshiaki Kino****a, Team President:

Quote:

“We have updated the TS030 HYBRID after what we learned at Le Mans which showed the cars potential.”

While I am not sure they will be ready to take on the formidable Audi's just yet, after just two races, they are most certainly in the hunt.