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Le Mans / ALMS
LE MANS: WEC Debrief, LM24
John Dagys explores the storylines on and off the track from last weekend’s 80th Le Mans 24 Hours, the third round of the FIA WEC...
Despite a series of on-track incidents, Toyota impressed in the debut of its TS030 Hybrid. (Photo: John Dagys)
IMPRESSIVE DEBUT FOR TOYOTA — While Toyota’s highly anticipated return to the 24 Hours of Le Mans made the highlight reels for all the wrong reasons, the Japanese manufacturer still put on an impressive performance prior to early retirements for its pair of TS030 Hybrids.
Following an encouraging qualifying run, both of the super capacitor-based hybrids were surprisingly in the fight with Audi during the opening hours, with even the No. 7 car of Nicolas Lapierre briefly taking the lead in the sixth hour.
However, disaster wound strike teammate Anthony Davidson only seconds later, when the Englishman was hit by a GTE-Am class Ferrari entering the Mulsanne Corner, sending the No. 8 Toyota sideways and into a series of flips before ending its race hard in the tire barriers.
While Davidson sustained fractures to his T11 and T12 vertebrae from the high-speed shunt, Toyota’s No. 7 car continued and remained in the hunt until Kaz Nakajima had a coming together with fellow countryman Satoshi Motoyama in the Nissan-powered DeltaWing The incident triggered a downward spiral for the No. 7 car, ultimately ending with engine failure by the 11th hour.
With Toyota having been unable to complete a trouble-free 24-hour simulation heading into the car’s debut, not many expected the pair of TS030 Hybrids to finish. And while that turned out to be the case, the outright pace of the gasoline-powered factory LMP1 machines no doubt gives optimism for later this year.
“This race has shown us some important lessons we can work on in the coming weeks,” Wurz said. “I was a little surprise to see our rivals not getting faster, but it is a nice reward for everybody to lead the Le Mans 24 Hours at our first attempt. We have really shown a strong pace and gained some interesting information.”
Toyota Racing team president Yoshiaki Kinoshita added: “After all the hard work to get to this point, it really hurts to see both cars retire early. But in the next days we will look back on the first six hours of the race and feel great pride that we could lead Le Mans in our very first race.
“That is a remarkable achievement with such pioneering technology and this motivates us to push harder than ever to bring home some trophies in the remainder of the season.”
Toyota is expected to focus on a single-car effort for the remainder of the season, to be driven by Wurz, Lapierre and Nakajima. Technical director Pascal Vasselon told SPEED.com earlier this month that the return of a second car for the manufacturers’ home race in Mt. Fuji, Japan is possible.
MAZDA BREAKS NEW GROUND WITH P2 DIESEL ENGINE— Another Japanese manufacturer set to return to Le Mans is Mazda, which announced last weekend that it will build diesel powerplants for LMP2, with Dempsey Racing set to become the first customer of the 2.2-liter four-cylinder SKYACTIV-D turbo.
Developed and operated by longtime Mazda partner SpeedSource, which recently moved into a new 50,000, state-of-the-art facility in Coral Springs, Fla., team principal Sylvain Tremblay says they will have the capacity to support six full-time teams.
"I think P2 as a whole has changed in the past couple of seasons,” Tremblay told SPEED.com. “It's extremely competitive. Some of the other manufacturers are giving out quite a bit of support. So it's fantastic racing but very, very challenging, especially for the new kids on the block like us, in P2.
"But luckily, we've had a lot of time to prepare, a lot of time to lay out a good plan and really follow in the footsteps in the people that won the race in '91. We have a lot of support from Japan, so that's made a huge difference in what we're trying to do."
While Tremblay’s SpeedSource operation will continue to compete in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series, moving into the newly launched GX class with a to-be-announced car, also powered by an iteration of the SKYACTIV-D, the team has also purchased a Lola B12/80 that will serve as a development car for the new P2 engine program.
Tremblay also hasn’t ruled out SpeedSource running one of the cars themselves, but said it’s ultimately up to Mazda and the direction it wants to take in the new engine program.
"Our focus right now is whatever Mazda gives us the direction to do,” Tremblay said. “Our main direction right now is to develop this engine. In order to develop it properly, we've purchased a car. We're going to do a lot of on-track testing in P2 to support our customers.
"Dempsey Racing will be our first customer. We've had a lot of European interest from very well established teams, which has been surprising. I think that speaks volumes of how Mazda does business globally and the support they give its racers in North America. That model really translates well to a worldwide platform.”
In addition to Dempsey Racing, Status GP, co-owned by former Mazda driver David Kennedy, is also in negotiations to run the new diesel powerplant in 2013.
Following an encouraging qualifying run, both of the super capacitor-based hybrids were surprisingly in the fight with Audi during the opening hours, with even the No. 7 car of Nicolas Lapierre briefly taking the lead in the sixth hour.
However, disaster wound strike teammate Anthony Davidson only seconds later, when the Englishman was hit by a GTE-Am class Ferrari entering the Mulsanne Corner, sending the No. 8 Toyota sideways and into a series of flips before ending its race hard in the tire barriers.
While Davidson sustained fractures to his T11 and T12 vertebrae from the high-speed shunt, Toyota’s No. 7 car continued and remained in the hunt until Kaz Nakajima had a coming together with fellow countryman Satoshi Motoyama in the Nissan-powered DeltaWing The incident triggered a downward spiral for the No. 7 car, ultimately ending with engine failure by the 11th hour.
With Toyota having been unable to complete a trouble-free 24-hour simulation heading into the car’s debut, not many expected the pair of TS030 Hybrids to finish. And while that turned out to be the case, the outright pace of the gasoline-powered factory LMP1 machines no doubt gives optimism for later this year.
“This race has shown us some important lessons we can work on in the coming weeks,” Wurz said. “I was a little surprise to see our rivals not getting faster, but it is a nice reward for everybody to lead the Le Mans 24 Hours at our first attempt. We have really shown a strong pace and gained some interesting information.”
Toyota Racing team president Yoshiaki Kinoshita added: “After all the hard work to get to this point, it really hurts to see both cars retire early. But in the next days we will look back on the first six hours of the race and feel great pride that we could lead Le Mans in our very first race.
“That is a remarkable achievement with such pioneering technology and this motivates us to push harder than ever to bring home some trophies in the remainder of the season.”
Toyota is expected to focus on a single-car effort for the remainder of the season, to be driven by Wurz, Lapierre and Nakajima. Technical director Pascal Vasselon told SPEED.com earlier this month that the return of a second car for the manufacturers’ home race in Mt. Fuji, Japan is possible.
MAZDA BREAKS NEW GROUND WITH P2 DIESEL ENGINE— Another Japanese manufacturer set to return to Le Mans is Mazda, which announced last weekend that it will build diesel powerplants for LMP2, with Dempsey Racing set to become the first customer of the 2.2-liter four-cylinder SKYACTIV-D turbo.
Developed and operated by longtime Mazda partner SpeedSource, which recently moved into a new 50,000, state-of-the-art facility in Coral Springs, Fla., team principal Sylvain Tremblay says they will have the capacity to support six full-time teams.
"I think P2 as a whole has changed in the past couple of seasons,” Tremblay told SPEED.com. “It's extremely competitive. Some of the other manufacturers are giving out quite a bit of support. So it's fantastic racing but very, very challenging, especially for the new kids on the block like us, in P2.
"But luckily, we've had a lot of time to prepare, a lot of time to lay out a good plan and really follow in the footsteps in the people that won the race in '91. We have a lot of support from Japan, so that's made a huge difference in what we're trying to do."
While Tremblay’s SpeedSource operation will continue to compete in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series, moving into the newly launched GX class with a to-be-announced car, also powered by an iteration of the SKYACTIV-D, the team has also purchased a Lola B12/80 that will serve as a development car for the new P2 engine program.
Tremblay also hasn’t ruled out SpeedSource running one of the cars themselves, but said it’s ultimately up to Mazda and the direction it wants to take in the new engine program.
"Our focus right now is whatever Mazda gives us the direction to do,” Tremblay said. “Our main direction right now is to develop this engine. In order to develop it properly, we've purchased a car. We're going to do a lot of on-track testing in P2 to support our customers.
"Dempsey Racing will be our first customer. We've had a lot of European interest from very well established teams, which has been surprising. I think that speaks volumes of how Mazda does business globally and the support they give its racers in North America. That model really translates well to a worldwide platform.”
In addition to Dempsey Racing, Status GP, co-owned by former Mazda driver David Kennedy, is also in negotiations to run the new diesel powerplant in 2013.
Monterey
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