From the press release they only say this
Quote:
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This has been a tough event for us. We wanted to get a much better result, particularly for Kazuki. Like in Silverstone, we have shown a lap time improvement compared to last year but it has not been enough to challenge Audi and Porsche who have done an impressive job. Congratulations to Audi on a hard-fought victory. We will conduct a detailed investigation into the technical problems as well as the gap to our competitors. We will work flat-out and concentrate on the development of our Le Mans-spec car.”
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Toshio Sato says nothing that indicates they were underestimating their opponents. Only a congrats to Audi on their win, a few words that they wanted to win, will investigate the electrical issues and the reason they were off pace. I doubt the LM package they ran at the Prologue is the final look. Theyll need more tooling to get that car up to the pace. But, what I see is some positives...
The high downforce car was over 3 seconds faster than last year's low-drag car even though it has a significantly lower top speed. In 2014 the top speed was 308.6kmh for both Toyota's. This year is was 301.7kmh by the #1. Obviously the lower drag cars are the way to go at Spa. Toyota didnt do this. I dont want to act like theres a specific reason, but there are advantages to holding back your low drag car. They at least now can see how fast Audi's LM spec car is and what theyre going to need to beat it. They should be very good at LM considering they were able to do 334kmh during the prologue with the low-drag car's first run.
I know some poster said Toyoda can change the board, but I said he cant change the board's minds regarding budget. Even if he did change the board, what would that accomplish? I said that because Toyota have started the new 'motorsport first' initiative, so the lmp1 program may get a shot in the arm, but you cant say Akio can say jump and they sign off a budget increase overnight. But I do believe next year that might be a different story.