The never ending Toyota return to Le Mans (LMP1) Saga

[ArnageWRC]

Originally Posted by deggis

This story is about Toyota possibly returning to WRC in 2014, but it has interesting other bits (quotes from Kinosh!ta)...

http://www.caradvice.com.au/177991/t...o-wrc-in-2014/


Sounds like typical bargaining, but still surprised at the 2014 comments... almost sounds like this is misunderstanding and Kinosh!ta instead refers to the current situation.

Couldn't find these quotes from any other site. Writing it "LeMan" doesn't exactly raise the credibility of this story, but I guess the quotes are still real.

I'm a Rallyfan first, but I want them to stay in the WEC; a far better series, and far more relevant regards to future road car technology. The WRC doesn't really have any future technology. And who wants to buy a Yaris.....

[Articus]

Yeah really. If its WEC vs WRC then WEC should be the way to go....There are no American WRC rounds. Plus we get the chance to so something that is technologically more interesting with a WEC program. WRC Yaris? I will pass. Why are they even considering this? I suppose its because the places that WRC visits are wehre people are most likely to buy smaller cars anyway. To see a Yari beat a Citroen must be very important to them in some countries.

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by the.cosmic.pope

Whilst on the topic of Toyota, and first hand information, a rather nice man in the paddock at the weekend told me the sudden change from Red to Blue was the suits in Cologne considered red unlucky after the F1 exploits. Of course that looks stupid in PR, so they called it hybrid blue and went with that. But there is some information I was given first hand.

As I understood it - not the 'suits' in Cologne. A very important Japanese gentleman had the final say, I believe....... But it was based upon blue being luckier than red. On looks alone, it was definitely the right choice, IMO.

[GT6]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

As I understood it - not the 'suits' in Cologne. A very important Japanese gentleman had the final say, I believe....... But it was based upon blue being luckier than red. On looks alone, it was definitely the right choice, IMO.

That is exactly what they told us on the pit visit, with the japanese gentleman having been involved in toyota's previous attempt at le mans

[Simmi]

Interesting that they are so committed to getting back into the WRC when the likes of Ford are considering pulling out (for the umpteenth time).

[davehenrie]

Originally Posted by GT6

That is exactly what they told us on the pit visit, with the japanese gentleman having been involved in toyota's previous attempt at le mans

Incredible! The Emperor himself!

dh

[Acid09]

Who knows if there even is a WRC in a few year's time, the whole thing could quickly fall apart if Ford and Citroen really pull out.

[NelisB]

Originally Posted by Simmi

Interesting that they are so committed to getting back into the WRC when the likes of Ford are considering pulling out (for the umpteenth time).

If I remember correctly Alastair talked about the rally program as being a very entry level program. No real factory involvement besides building the cars and setting them up. I think he mentioned it as a S2000 program.

[CTD]

Originally Posted by NelisB

If I remember correctly Alastair talked about the rally program as being a very entry level program. No real factory involvement besides building the cars and setting them up. I think he mentioned it as a S2000 program.

To me it seems like S2000 being the future of rally.
Both Peugeot and Skoda is competing with their Hatches, and this would be perfect for the Yaris to attack.
Besides, an S2000 IRC program could actually turn a profit (like the Peugeot one most do)

[Articus]

Ford has no real excuse to pull out. They aren't spending the kind of money that Citroen is spending....

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by deggis

Sounds like typical bargaining, but still surprised at the 2014 comments... almost sounds like this is misunderstanding and Kinosh!ta instead refers to the current situation.

In http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IA3UxqNvIw#t=8m15 Ulrich Baretzky mentions that there were a lot of unhappy faces in the ACO press conference about the 2014 rules and he states that "this is always a sign for a good compromise". Clearly Toyota thinks differently

[TF110]

Looks like people are fed up with the Diesel love. Toyota probably don't even need to cry it foul much if were going on how they ran in terms of pace.

[alexkiller8]

i'm sure that manufacters and lmp1 teams knew about new fuel formula but maybe none expected so restrictive consume limits. Maybe audi planned to use for 2014 an evolution of current engine (engine that won more than a prize) but now they have to project and build a new one, spending a lot of money in R&D just to garantuee the regulamentar consume limit. Repeat, in my opinion there will a new wave of turbo engines, or less probably some manufacters will introduce modified and optimized hybridless street derivated NA engines as happens in grand-am. Engines with a displacement between 4.0L and 5.0L with a revlimit not over 7500rpm, surely this option can be good for private teams.

[hotlavaaaa]

Here's a few screencaps I took from Toyota's Road to Le Mans documentary that show some things that we haven't really seen before.

[Aysedasi]

OK, so annotations for those who like them coz they look good, not because of the (very obvious) new technology.........?

[Victor_RO]

Stephane Sarrazin will be taking the TS030 up the hill at Goodwood according to the team on Twitter, now that Ant is ruled out of driving for a while.

[Acid09]

Nice to see that Sarrazin gets a reward for his Le Mans performance seeing that he won't drive the car again this year even if they bring two to Fuji.

[TF110]

I hope this means he'll have a drive with them again in the future. He should be a main stay for next year if they do 2 or 3 cars for the WEC.

[FstrthnU]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/100619
Ant says the foam padding in the seat was probably the one thing which saved him from paralysis. Kudos to Toyota's engineers

[gwyllion]

I found a copy of the Road to Le Mans documentary that was shown on SPEED: Great stuff, well worth seeing.

Jump to 22:30 to see Sam Collins being very enthusiastic about the car

One of the biggest technical challenge turns out to be downshifting. In low grip conditions (e.g. wet track) the first version for the hybrid system caused the rear to lock and made the car very unstable.

At 28:20 the documentary supposedly shows the car after the notorious crash that damaged the tub. SPEED did some very fishy editing, because this footage is from an earlier test at Paul Ricard as the car suddenly has the old aero package and visibly undamaged.

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by gwyllion

I found a copy of the Road to Le Mans documentary that was shown on SPEED: Great stuff, well worth seeing.

Jump to 22:30 to see Sam Collins being very enthusiastic about the car

One of the biggest technical challenge turns out to be downshifting. In low grip conditions (e.g. wet track) the first version for the hybrid system caused the rear to lock and made the car very unstable.

At 28:20 the documentary supposedly shows the car after the notorious crash that damaged the tub. SPEED did some very fishy editing, because this footage is from an earlier test at Paul Ricard as the car suddenly has the old aero package and visibly undamaged.

Watching it right now. Interesting they have the GT-One in the scale wind tunnel shots. And it's just placed in the tunnel, the sting isn't attached. TMG still rents out their tunnel? Must have been juggling around customers...

[chernaudi]

Interesting illustration of the TS030's front diffuser at the lemansprototypes blog--it seems that the main diffuser strakes form the outer section of the outer main diffuser channels, and said strakes start in the inside of the outboard section and curve inboard to from the main channels' outboard divider.

Also of note is a set of smaller VG like strakes in the outboard section similar to what Audi ran on the LM variant of the R18 last year.

[TF110]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Watching it right now. Interesting they have the GT-One in the scale wind tunnel shots. And it's just placed in the tunnel, the sting isn't attached. TMG still rents out their tunnel? Must have been juggling around customers...

Vasselon commented that was the case in one of the older interviews. I wonder if they'd have an even better aero efficient car if they had the facilities to themselves.

[gwyllion]

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Watching it right now. Interesting they have the GT-One in the scale wind tunnel shots. And it's just placed in the tunnel, the sting isn't attached.

I imagine that the SPEED camera team wanted some shots from the wind tunnel, when they were at TMG to do some interviews, and that they quickly put the GT-One scale model in the tunnel.

I also noticed that when Hisatake Murata is interviewed in Japan, the engine that he is standing next to, has a coated exhaust with a much smaller diameter than on the real car. The exhaust looked very similar to the exhaust of the customer engine.

The documentary is edited heavily and sometimes does not respect the time line of the project. I already mentioned to footage of the crash. Another example is that fact that interviews with Davidson are shown before he got involved with the project.

[TF110]

It's just a SPEED show, nothing really shown was in line in terms of time. I didn't expect anything in depth. At least there was a few things said and shown that were new though, like the downshift issue and the all black front bodywork.