MOTORSPORT: Le Mans still uphill for Toyota

Toyota has tweaked its TS050 hybrid prototype sports car hoping that, without Porsche and Audi to race against now, it can finally win Le Mans at its 20th attempt - but it's still no lay down misere.

A raft of changes introduced for the World Endurance Championship 'super season' that will go from May this year until June next year, and include two runnings of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, will severely restrict the fuel and energy use in the two TS050s compared with their non-hybrid, privateer rivals.

While Fernando Alonso is Toyota's superstar driver recruit for the campaign, the Japanese manufacturer's British driver far more familiar with the TS050, Mike Conway, says it will be particularly disadvantaged by the rule changes in terms of top speed and that a Le Mans victory is "no foregone conclusion".

Toyota says it has "significantly enhanced" its 2.4-litre V6 petrol engine, its electric motors and its batteries, but it will be allowed to use only 32.5kg of fuel per stint, down from 44.1kg last year, while the less fuel-efficient privateer cars will be allowed to burn 52.9kg.

The non-hybrids also will be allowed to use 210.9 megajoules of energy a lap on the 13.629km Circuit de la Sarthe at Le Mans and Toyota just 124.9MJ.

Conway says the changes will mean that the non-hybrids could have top speeds of 360km/h and the Toyota 'only' 340km/h.

"It could be pretty difficult," Conway has told Autosport. "We definitely have an advantage in terms of four-wheel-drive systems, boost off the corner, but they can run a lot more downforce, more drag, because they have more fuel to burn a lap."

The 'super season' starts with a six-hour race at Spa in Belgium on the first weekend of May, with Le Mans in mid-June and then another five six-hour races - at Silverstone in Britain, Fuji in Japan and Shanghai in China this year, then next year at Sebring in the US and Spa again - before another Le Mans in the middle of next year.

Mazda is the only Japanese manufacturer to have won the 24-hour classic in France, arguably the world's greatest and most important motor race, in 1991.

Talks are intensifying between motor sport's world governing Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the Le Mans and WEC organiser, Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and the American-based International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) to try to settle on a global platform for prototype sports car racing beyond 2020 or '21.

The much cheaper, non-hybrid Daytona Prototype (DPi) series in America now has four manufacturers participating - the dominant Cadillac, Honda's Acura brand is a newcomer this season in association with iconic team owner Roger Penske, as well as Mazda and Nissan.

Other manufacturers are interested in participating in sports car racing, especially if the rules enable them to compete for outright wins in the WEC and IMSA series with the same type of cars.

The powerful ACO is understood to be well disposed towards an evolution of the DPi as the global platform but with the cars having greater brand identity to production cars.

Ford, according to a feature on the authorative website dailysportscar.com, "are looking for the next big thing in their global motorsport programme with the current Ford GT programme currently only committed until the end of 2019".

"Other companies including Renault, BMW and Hyundai have expressed interest," it said, while Lexus could run a Toyota in IMSA.

McLaren too is keen to return to Le Mans. Its executive director Zak Brown says the DPi rules are "a good starting point" for discussion but that hybrids have to play a role in any future top-level prototype platform, while Mazda and Acura are against hybrids.

Aston Martin is another possibility, perhaps with its Valkyrie hypercar, although it may also have F1 aspirations with Red Bull - whose technical genius, Adrian Newey, designed the Valkyrie.

If rules were framed that suited Ferrari, once the key player at Le Mans in its famous tussles with Ford, and which appears to be getting increasingly annoyed with F1's relatively new American owner Liberty Media, it could be a 'big fish' in a new era of prototype sports car racing.

Announcements on the upcoming WEC season are expected this weekend, with an announcement on future rules due at Le Mans mid-year.