[WEC] Toyota LMP1 Discussion

[Bubak]

Same story like every year. Ideal lap (num. 5 grabbed 3:23.197 with their ideal sectors times thanks to Ant Davidson, every sector was the best for num. 5 car...)
1st: about 0,7 off the Porsches (almost identical with a Rebellion guys): pure power with a twisty sections, so it suited well for Porsche (thanks to powerfull HY) and Audi (diesel + aero...)
2nd, Mulsanne: almost a the same for all manu. Simple, also well for low low drag TS050.
3nd (oh damm, that Porsche curves! ): 1:31.845 for Webber, 1:31.857 for Di Grassi, Toyotas were 1:33.147 and 1:33.288 .

So, tyre wear, traffic, race pace... My point of the view is, when I saw TS050's aero for Le Mans, that aero strategy (low drag for tyre wear, fuel strategy etc...), like this maybe worked years ago, but from 2008/2011 it will be never worked to be on first place... + traffic issues.

Maybe 2nd... and TS050 must be 2nd, just like every TS0x0.

[Articus]

Originally Posted by Acid09

What you fail taking into account is that, compared to Porsche, Toyota has a brand new car with much more speed to be found yet.

As RCE outlined, not even the aerowork for race week seems to be fully in place yet. The car is simply a big work-in-progress state right now, as was expected considering that they majorly pulled the development of the new package forward to have it ready for the season.

People need to stop freaking out about practice times, after practice and qualy in Spa people were convinced that they would have an embarrassing performance. And what happened? They would have won the race in a dominant fashion if it hadn't been for the engine issues.

They will arrive with an unproven aero kit on raceweek and have no idea how it's going to go over a 24 hour conditions? Why do you think that bodes well for them? Compared to Audi Porsche who already have a race under their belts with there LM aero?

[Hiro]

according to AS, Toyota had to abandon new-tyre runs with both cars courtesy of the red flag. So i think they could have been on par with competitions if they had run on new tires, what do you think?

[mike46and2]

Originally Posted by Articus

Understandable that Toyota fans are being optimistic. I best the same things were said after last years test day when they were off the pace then too (albeit by a much larger amount) But the last 4-5 years are test day history tend to disagree.

I can't find any data in the last 4 editions of Le Mans where the test day didn't reveal the race week pecking order in the LMP1 class. Like i said, in that 2014 year when Toyota had the dominant race car, they topped the test day 1-2 and ran away with the race until they hit issues. It goes to show, that you've got that much extra pace when you top the test day doing race day runs.

It's not like Toyota is sandbagging. How can they understand tire wear, fuel consumption, and improve setup, if the drivers aren't atleast running a mock race pace including the traffic.

The test day is telling of the P1 pecking order.

2014 test day had Toyotas fastest but did not win , Audi was there with a new car that there were still developing like Toyota is now . That race also turned into a reliability contest not a 24 hour sprint . The test doesn't doom the Toyotas.

[GasperG]

I will just say it's nice to see all three manufacturers with minimal gap, remember last year Toyota was 4-5s off at test day, that was way off.

It will be anyone's race and one of the best races to watch, can't wait.

[Artur]

Originally Posted by Articus

Understandable that Toyota fans are being optimistic. I best the same things were said after last years test day when they were off the pace then too (albeit by a much larger amount) But the last 4-5 years are test day history tend to disagree.

I can't find any data in the last 4 editions of Le Mans where the test day didn't reveal the race week pecking order in the LMP1 class. Like i said, in that 2014 year when Toyota had the dominant race car, they topped the test day 1-2 and ran away with the race until they hit issues. It goes to show, that you've got that much extra pace when you top the test day doing race day runs.

It's not like Toyota is sandbagging. How can they understand tire wear, fuel consumption, and improve setup, if the drivers aren't atleast running a mock race pace including the traffic.

The test day is telling of the P1 pecking order.

Please, don't bring too much reason to such discussions. Let people dream while they still can

Here's my prediction regarding the race's best lap(ideal too) : Toyota at least 1.5s slower than Audi and about 1s slower than Porsche.

[Acid09]

Why are there a few people in here who seem to take enjoyment in talking down on Toyota and their performance?

It seems like some people are personally offended by them not going all-out during each practice session.

[Artur]

Originally Posted by Acid09

People need to stop freaking out about practice times, after practice and qualy in Spa people were convinced that they would have an embarrassing performance. And what happened? They would have won the race in a dominant fashion if it hadn't been for the engine issues.

I know being passionate about something can leads to distortion of things and etc but come on......

In a total clean race, the only dominant car was Porsche and that with the "wrong tyres"

Toyota fluked with the appropriate tyres for the conditions and even then couldn't be faster than Porsche and was about to be overtaken until an unfortunate puncture of the #1

I'm also having a good time seeing people believe that Toyota will find massive time with tiny little tweaks that they might bring on the race week

Originally Posted by Hiro

according to AS, Toyota had to abandon new-tyre runs with both cars courtesy of the red flag. So i think they could have been on par with competitions if they had run on new tires, what do you think?

isn't it great? right now, there is still room for lot's of expectations and hopes. After qualifying, there will be much less(winning on basis of reliability and/or having relatively better race pace)

If Toyota surprises me and have pace to fight out for positions on track, then I'll be very pleased, though. I'm glad I can still hope for a tight fight between everybody

[tomazy]

Originally Posted by Hiro

according to AS, Toyota had to abandon new-tyre runs with both cars courtesy of the red flag. So i think they could have been on par with competitions if they had run on new tires, what do you think?

Well not really, Audi did 3:21.375 on lap 5 of a 13 lap stint, that stint was probably a full racing stint with 10 laps under 3:25.0

Both fastest laps from Toyota were made on a 4 lap stints.

[Breinig]

Originally Posted by Hiro

according to AS, Toyota had to abandon new-tyre runs with both cars courtesy of the red flag. So i think they could have been on par with competitions if they had run on new tires, what do you think?

Sounds reasonable, as Toyota's fastest run was during morning session whilst both leading Audi and Porsche and all other classes pole setter were quicker in the afternoon.

[bentley speed 8]

Just a theory I made up:

I remember Toyota had problems to keep up the pace in traffic at Silverstone.

Maybe they are having the same problem here and coupled with their seemingly ultra-low drag kit, it makes them a lot slower in S1 and S3 because they loose a lot of time behind traffic.

[Spyderman]

We don't really know what the condition of the tires that were being run by the different teams, and this quote from Neel Jani only serves to cast further doubt:

Neel Jani: "Today, we get a first impression of our speed at Le Mans, I'm positive about the race weekend at the end of the early termination was a shame I would like to know what might have gone on fresh tires, but.. the conditions are finally equal for all. "

[TF110]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Why are there a few people in here who seem to take enjoyment in talking down on Toyota and their performance?

It seems like some people are personally offended by them not going all-out during each practice session.

That's seemingly their m-o, crap on the team they don't like. They were nowhere to be seen when Toyota dominated in 2014.

Originally Posted by Artur

I know being passionate about something can leads to distortion of things and etc but come on......

In a total clean race, the only dominant car was Porsche and that with the "wrong tyres"

Toyota fluked with the appropriate tyres for the conditions and even then couldn't be faster than Porsche and was about to be overtaken until an unfortunate puncture of the #1

I'm also having a good time seeing people believe that Toyota will find massive time with tiny little tweaks that they might bring on the race week



isn't it great? right now, there is still room for lot's of expectations and hopes. After qualifying, there will be much less(winning on basis of reliability and/or having relatively better race pace)

If Toyota surprises me and have pace to fight out for positions on track, then I'll be very pleased, though. I'm glad I can still hope for a tight fight between everybody

Soft tires 'work' in any condition, but they don't work as long in the heat. Porsche set their fastest laps at the beginning of the race, at the beginning of their stint. So they relied on softer tires (which are faster over a shorter period), a clear track (no traffic) and high downforce (lower top speed than Audi and Toyota). #1 Porsche was with the #5 Toyota for 2 or 3 laps and couldn't pass, even though they were the "dominant car" in your words. What's funny is that they had trouble passing the 'slow Toyota' on 1 and a half stint old tires. Then they had a flat. So was the car setup to use too much of the tires accidentally? They wouldn't have been any faster with high heat tires since they're a harder compound. They may have been able to double stint them, but that's a guess just like the issues with the flats.

A guess, just like our guesses as to who will win Le Mans, or even qualify where.

[Gingers4Justice]

Toyota are not out of this yet. I know Test Day is a fairer indication of how things go than it used to be, but we really can't predict how the race will pan out. There are so many variables in the current era.

Remember in 2013 how Audi simply could not put a lap on Toyota with a much faster car? Remember how Toyota's race was done by 5am in 2014 despite having a car which was the class of the field? Who would have thought the #19 Porsche was going to be the fastest of the 919s?

Even if the Test Day is an exact representation of the three manufacturers' speed at Le Mans, it does not rule them out as a contender. Their biggest threat to a win will be their reliability rather than their pace.

[cokata]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Toyota are not out of this yet. I know Test Day is a fairer indication of how things go than it used to be, but we really can't predict how the race will pan out. There are so many variables in the current era.

Remember in 2013 how Audi simply could not put a lap on Toyota with a much faster car? Remember how Toyota's race was done by 5am in 2014 despite having a car which was the class of the field? Who would have thought the #19 Porsche was going to be the fastest of the 919s?

Even if the Test Day is an exact representation of the three manufacturers' speed at Le Mans, it does not rule them out as a contender. Their biggest threat to a win will be their reliability rather than their pace.

For Toyota to be "in the game" they need to be in the ballpark with the competition. I don't think anyone (TF110 included) seriously can expect them to have the best outright pace, but they need to be close in order to have a chance. I feel that the reliability will be better than what is expected, and i don't expect the old scenario of "slowest, but most reliable wins" to play out.

[Acid09]

Looking at the stint lengths, Toyota seems to be able to go 14 laps, just as Porsche, Audi can only manage 13.

So Audi basically needs to be much faster than the other two just to make up for that deficit alone. Toyota is also apparently banking on getting more out of their tires than the competition, which could help bridge the gap to Porsche.

So with a fuel-econpmoy advantage over one of the competitors and a possible tire advantage over the other, being less than 2 seconds behind (it might be even less, considering that they didn't get their fast run in and tend to underperform in practice anyways) is not a particularly bad position to be in.

[sssssssss]

i personally think both sides of this "toyota competitiveness" discussion are exaggerating a bit. based on the races and lap times we've got so far, the ts050 is clearly NOT the fastest of the big 3 and it is quite far from having proved any "dominance" this season, like some tend to say about the spa race. on the other hand, those who give them no chance of winning le mans due to being less than 2s slower than audi and less than 1s slower than porsche at the test day are also judging the situation much too early. the difference between audi and peugeot in 2008 was much bigger than that in lap times, yet it wasn't the faster car that got to the finish line first. on the other hand, last year, audi had the fastest car in the race and they didn't even finish second. the examples are countless. there certainly aren't any big performance gaps this year between the main factory cars and, given that both audi and porsche are down to 2 cars, just like toyota, means all 3 manufacturers have very similar chances of winning this year. i certainly wouldn't jump to any conclusion right now. also, test day times aren't all that relevant. they are relevant in a way where we know this year's cars can go in the 3:21s, despite the rule changes (which most of us i think already expected) and it may be relevant in that it is usually the faster car in terms of pace that sets the fastest lap on test day too, although they all hold back quite a bit, so we may suspect audi will have very good pace, at least in the race (as they usually don't go for pole by default).

[tomazy]

Originally Posted by Acid09

Looking at the stint lengths, Toyota seems to be able to go 14 laps, just as Porsche, Audi can only manage 13.

So Audi basically needs to be much faster than the other two just to make up for that deficit alone. Toyota is also apparently banking on getting more out of their tires than the competition, which could help bridge the gap to Porsche.

So with a fuel-econpmoy advantage over one of the competitors and a possible tire advantage over the other, being less than 2 seconds behind (it might be even less, considering that they didn't get their fast run in and tend to underperform in practice anyways) is not a particularly bad position to be in.

I know that I am going in to the analysis of the long stints in too much detail, but here I go anyway.
Lets compare Toyotas 14 lap stint with Audis 13 lap stint. For averages, I will not count out and in laps for obvious reasons, so here I go.

Toyota:

17:02.775 out
3:30.843
3:28.497
3:26.131
3:25.856
3:27.175
3:30.518
3:25.892
3:27.390
3:28.583
3:25.385
3:26.042
3:27.512
3:34.629 in

Average: 3:27.485, delta between fastest and slowest lap is 5,458s, and delta between fastest lap to average is 2,100s.

Audi:

4:59.070 out
3:24.237
3:24.252
3:24.896
3:21.375
3:23.902
3:23.587
3:21.977
3:23.724
3:26.203
3:24.836
3:23.461
3:30.747 in

Average: 3:23.859, delta between fastest and slowest lap is 4,828s, and delta between fastest lap to average is 2,484s.

Becouse the deltas from fastest to slowest laps and to average laps are quite similar, I would conclude that on both runs, they had similar traffic isues, so the comparison is valid.
We can coclude, that on this day of the test, Audis race simulation run was 3,626s faster than Toyotas which is not less that 2s by a long way and 1 lap difirance in stint lenghts will not help Toyota in this case.
But there are too many variables like tire compaund and tire age that we do not know (and how many bags of sand there was in the car) so all this analaysis is meaningless so I just throw avay 30 mins of my life for nothing.

[PascaLM]

I'm afraid for Toyota that the track will be as cold for the race as it was at the test day.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by PascaLM

I'm afraid for Toyota that the track will be as cold for the race as it was at the test day.

Won't be bad for them, or any team. They'll have good data if the conditions are like the test day. I don't know what the limit is on compound choices for LM, but it should be possible to have tires for any type of condition, right?

Buemi playing down expectations, http://www.motorsport.com/lemans/new.../?r=82846&em=1

[sssssssss]

Originally Posted by tomazy

I know that I am going in to the analysis of the long stints in too much detail, but here I go anyway.
Lets compare Toyotas 14 lap stint with Audis 13 lap stint. For averages, I will not count out and in laps for obvious reasons, so here I go.

Toyota:

17:02.775 out
3:30.843
3:28.497
3:26.131
3:25.856
3:27.175
3:30.518
3:25.892
3:27.390
3:28.583
3:25.385
3:26.042
3:27.512
3:34.629 in

Average: 3:27.485, delta between fastest and slowest lap is 5,458s, and delta between fastest lap to average is 2,100s.

Audi:

4:59.070 out
3:24.237
3:24.252
3:24.896
3:21.375
3:23.902
3:23.587
3:21.977
3:23.724
3:26.203
3:24.836
3:23.461
3:30.747 in

Average: 3:23.859, delta between fastest and slowest lap is 4,828s, and delta between fastest lap to average is 2,484s.

Becouse the deltas from fastest to slowest laps and to average laps are quite similar, I would conclude that on both runs, they had similar traffic isues, so the comparison is valid.
We can coclude, that on this day of the test, Audis race simulation run was 3,626s faster than Toyotas which is not less that 2s by a long way and 1 lap difirance in stint lenghts will not help Toyota in this case.
But there are too many variables like tire compaund and tire age that we do not know (and how many bags of sand there was in the car) so all this analaysis is meaningless so I just throw avay 30 mins of my life for nothing.

actually i think that comparison is quite interesting, to say the least.
if we add porsche to the equation, we get this (times in brackets excluded from the calculated average, in and out laps also excluded):

Porsche #1:

(4:47.636)
3:25.704
3:26.181
(3:53.042)
3:26.647
3:26.035
3:27.411
3:24.067
3:22.890
3:29.097
3:26.690
3:25.205
average: 3:25.993

3:28.021
3:27.289
3:29.230
3:26.113
3:27.148
3:25.983
3:24.474
3:26.918
3:25.814
3:26.991
3:25.593
3:25.048
average: 3:26.551


porsche #2:

(8:16.235)
3:29.814
3:27.811
3:26.898
3:28.695
3:27.653
3:27.867
3:26.876
3:30.888
3:27.398
3:23.758
3:22.568
average: 3:27.293

so, while i do think these measurements hold some relevance, i also believe the final result brings bigger gaps than what i personally expect the reality to be:

audi #8: 3:23.859 (+0.000), fastest lap in stint: 3:21.375 (+0.000)
porsche #1: 3:25.993 (+2.134), fastest lap in stints: 3:22.890 (+1.515)
porsche #2: 3:26.551 (+2.692), fastest lap in stint: 3:22.568 (+1.193)
toyota #5: 3:27.485 (+3.626), fastest lap in stint: 3:25.385 (+4.010)

[godlameroso]

What can we really determine from that though? Toyota has been on average about 2.5-3 seconds faster than last year, while Audi and Porsche are actually a tad slower than last year.

No one has showed their hand yet because EVERYONE is capable of going under 3:20 in ultimate pace. Given what we saw in Silverstone and Spa, Toyota is not 3.6 seconds behind in race pace, no way no how.

[sssssssss]

well, actually audi has been slightly faster than last year on every track except spa, including the le mans test day now. and they were the fastest of all cars on all these tracks last year (in the races), except paul ricard. i too think toyota aren't 3.6 s. slower than audi on average (although you can't really judge le mans pace and gaps by silverstone and/or spa pace and gaps), but what we can determine is that audi seem really fast and confident about their this year (it was really only in the years when they completely dominated le mans that they posted the quickest practice times as well, otherwise they never go for it). and we can also presume that, looking beyond how big or smll the gaps are, this might be the race pace order, as most of the times that's what the test day shows: no true speed, but relevant relative speed between the main rivals. although, of course, there are significant exceptions to that rule.

[TF110]

Toyota race preview http://www.toyotahybridracing.com/le-mans-calling/. No one has shown their hand, like Conway says in that story. You'll only know during the race, maybe practice.

[kvenom]

Comparing that press release to the 2014 one is night and day.