Метка: Toyota Racing

Ogier holds rally lead, Evans hit by overheating drama

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Thick fog provided a curveball for the field, but it failed to derail Ogier as the eight-time world champion led Tanak by 10.1s after the morning’s three stages. 

Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville held onto third [+1m12.1s], while M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux [+1m44.0s] leapfrogged Hyundai’s Dani Sordo [+2m44.2s] into fourth.

Toyota’s Evans completed the three stages, but an overheating issue put his rally in jeopardy, forcing Evans and co-driver Scott Martin to attempt a fix on a road section, before heading to the regroup. M-Sport’s Gregoire Munster also hit trouble when his Puma became beached in stage 21.     

Fog that intensified with every pass made driving conditions incredibly difficult for the day’s opening stage [Cabeceiras de Basto, 19.91km].

Hyundai’s Sordo was among those seeming affected by the conditions as the Spaniard lost grip of fourth overall and slipped behind Fourmaux, who was fourth fastest on the stage after battling an intermittent intercom issue.

“I tried to do a good stage but lost a lot of time at the end because we had an issue with the intercom, and I couldn’t hear Alex [Coria – co-driver]. With the weather we have, I should’ve gone mushroom picking,” said Fourmaux.

Sordo was extremely cautious through the stage losing 40.7s and initially appeared to be carrying a problem, before confirming at stage end that there was no issue with his i20 N.

“It was just very foggy and I was really bad, the car was understeering a lot. It was so difficult to drive like this,” said Sordo.  

Despite the worsening conditions, Ogier delivered his seventh stage win of the event to open up a healthy overall lead and move to the top the Super Sunday standings. The Toyota driver was 3.3s faster than Neuville, while rally rival Tanak dropped 6.2s as his victory hopes began to fade.

In the battle for the WRC2 honours, Ireland’s Josh McErlean managed to cut the gap to leader Jan Solans to 3.0s.

The thick fog rolled into the iconic Fafe [Stage 20, 11.18km], with the poor visibility testing the crews to their limits.

Tanak produced a brave drive in the challenging conditions to win the stage by 4.0s from Neuville while taking 4.5s out of rally leader Ogier to bring the gap down 13.6s.

Evans emerged from the fog 5.3s adrift to keep himself in the hunt for the Super Sunday points, sitting fourth in the final day classification.

Fourmaux extended his margin over Sordo in the fight for fourth overall to 36.0s as the latter continued to struggle with the poor visibility.

“It is difficult when you can’t see the road,” said Sordo.

Kalle Rovanpera, who rejoined the rally following his roll from the lead on Saturday, was slowest of the Rally1 runners. The Finn dropped 23.6s to stage winner Tanak after admitting that he was saving his tyres for the Power Stage given the disadvantage of starting first on the road.

Team-mate Takamoto Katsuta, who also restarted on Sunday, lost time to a hybrid issue on his GR Yaris.   

The lead of the WRC2 class changed hands as McErlean managed to beat Solans by 3.1s to move into a 0.1s rally lead, before losing that lead to Solans on stage 21 to the tune of 6.4s.

Tanak won the final stage of the morning by 1.4s from Neuville as the Estonian again took a nibble out of Ogier’s lead. The stage win was enough to haul Tanak ahead of Ogier to the top of the Super Sunday standings by 1.8s. Neuville held third in the Sunday classification ahead of Fourmaux, Katsuta, Rovanpera and Sordo. 

The rally will conclude following this afternoon’s Fafe Power Stage.



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Rovanpera explains WRC Portugal exit from the lead

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The Toyota driver started the Saturday morning loop setting a blistering pace that resulted in a stage 10 win to open up a 6.7s lead over team-mate and fellow 2024 part-time driver Sebastien Ogier.

However, Rovanpera’s rally quickly came undone on stage 11 [Montim, 8.69km] when the Finn lost the rear of his GR Yaris and hit a tree, which then pitched the car into a roll. The car eventually came to rest on its side before Rovanpera and co-driver Jonne Halttunen clambered out of the vehicle unharmed.

This was the second time in three rallies this year that Rovanpera has crashed from a leading position after exiting Rally Sweden in February. Rovanpera was victorious in his other 2024 appearance in Kenya in March.

When asked to explain his stage 11 exit, Rovanpera, who will rejoin the rally on Sunday, said: “Sweden was completely my mistake and this one was bit of a confusion with the pacenotes at the previous place [in the stage] and Jonne read the notes wrong.

“But that was not the reason for the crash but on the straight after I was maybe thinking about it a bit and I missed my braking.”

He added “Defintiely the car today felt fine so it would probably have been a better day for us today [than yesterday], so it is shame.”

In the moments after the crash, WRC2 leader Oliver Solberg made a mistake and rolled his Toksport Skoda shortly after passing Rovanpera’s stricken GR Yaris.

The Swede admitted that he was distracted by Rovanpera’s incident and it triggered his crash.

“During SS11, we came across Kalle [Rovanpera] and Jonne [Halttunen] off the road and I became distracted, missing the next note. We ran off [the] line and clipped the bank on the outside of the next corner, where we rolled the car,” said Solberg.

«Elliott [Edmonson, co-driver] and I are completely fine, but due to the condition of the car we have decided that we will not continue tomorrow (Sunday).»

Toyota’s Takamoto Katsuta became the third high-profile retirement from the day after damaging his GR Yaris’s right-rear suspension following a relatively small impact with a rock in stage 12 [Amarante, 37.24km]

“It was in one of the high-speed sections and I went wide on right corner and there was an immediate left and we hit the bank on the outside and I was not able to turn immediately and hit a rock or wall and I got damage to the right rear suspension,” said Katsuta, who surrendered third position.

“I don’t know exactly what was there and the car is strong enough as we survived the Safari, but for sure this kind of impact was a bit too much.”  

 
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Driving to smartphone WRC pacenotes “almost as good as normal”

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Evans was forced to drive to pacenotes read from a smartphone by his co-driver Scott Martin for three stages after the latter left his pacenote book at time control at the end of stage six.

The unusual incident was triggered by a bottleneck at the end of stage 6. Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville and Martijn Wydaeghe faced a delay as officials marked their timecard that required Wydaeghe to exit his vehicle to speak to officials.

The issue hadn’t been resolved by the time Evans pulled up resulting in Martin leaving the car to hand his timecard to an official. Martin opted to carry his pacenote book with him to the time control desk and accidentally left the book on the table before returning back to his Toyota.

After realising he was without his pacenotes, Martin was forced to resort to reading a digitised set of pacenotes from his tiny mobile phone screen. Luckily the veteran co-driver has always created digital notes as backup — this being the first time he has needed to deploy them.

While using a smartphone brought with it unique challenges, Evans was impressed by how well his co-driver coped.

“I was very surprised how well he was doing to be honest,” Evans told Motorsport.com. “There was obviously the odd stumble when the phone didn’t do what he wanted, but otherwise it wasn’t disturbing and almost as good as the normal thing.”

Photo by: McKlein / Motorsport Images

Martin admitted the moment he realised the error brought on a moment of panic, but he was glad he had a backup plan and surprised himself by how well he coped.

“I thought to myself one day I might be in the situation where I don’t have them [pacenotes] or they are lost,” Martin told Motorsport.com. “You never stop learning and thinking of ways to have yourself covered.

“I say it quite a lot to expect the unexpected and try to have a backup plan. All those years of scanning them and having them digitally paid off.

“I didn’t know how it was going to go. My eyes were starting to get a bit weaker especially when you are looking at digital screens. I surprised myself. I was just worried about all kinds of things like making sure the phone was on airplane mode and thinking about all the things the phone has that you don’t really use. I had nothing distracting me, so no notifications popping up.”

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Elfyn Evans, Scott Martin, Toyota Gazoo Racing WRT Toyota GR Yaris Rally1

Photo by: Toyota Racing

When asked if the system could be the future of co-driving, Martin added: “I don’t believe it is the future, I still like pen and paper.”

The pacenote issue contributed to what was a difficult day for Evans who had been struggling for confidence in his GR Yaris before a puncture in stage seven quashed any hopes of a podium finish.

“There is not a lot of positives to take, basically everything we touched has gone wrong, but that is how it is,” said Evans who ended Friday in eighth, 1m43.2s adrift of leader Kalle Rovanpera with title rival Neuville in sixth.

“I think we worked through some things that felt better [on the car] but I still don’t think we found the ultimate package yet. I think there are answers in there somewhere.

“It is just about learning something now, I think. There is nothing to fight for as such in terms of catching somebody on pure pace unless somebody has trouble, so we just try to go out there and have a good feeling with the car.”



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Toyota not “expecting too many changes” to WRC technical rules for 2025

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


The WRC is currently gripped by discussions over the technical rules for next year after teams strongly opposed the FIA’s proposal to make changes to Rally1 and Rally2 cars in a bid to boost entry numbers at events.

The FIA intends to remove hybrid power from Rally1 cars and further reduce the performance of the vehicles by modifying the rear wing and the air restrictor. The WRC manufacturers wrote a letter to the FIA last month requesting the current rules stay in place until the end of 2026.

A dossier is currently being worked on that will be submitted to the FIA which will then make a final decision on regulations, that will be communicated at the World Motor Sport Council on June 11.

According to Toyota boss Latvala, more discussions will be held at Rally Portugal this weekend, but the Finn believes technical changes are likely to be limited for next year. 

“I think there will be some meetings here and step by step things are developing and going forward,” Latvala told Motorsport.com.

“I hope by the end of this month we start to know where we are. If I have understood the focus is more on the bigger picture overall, regulations for 2027.

“All the manufacturers have come together saying we shouldn’t change so much, and I don’t expect too many changes for next year. This is the expectation, but nothing is decided.

“If we think the short term, of course, we want all the teams to commit to the championship and we don’t want it to get too expensive in the short term. Knowing the regulations for 2027 is more important now than changing things for 2025.”

Latvala is also feeling positive regarding the discussions over the 2027 regulations, which are yet to be officially ratified.

The FIA has however provided a framework that would see the Rally1 class based around the current Rally1 concept but will produce approximately 330 horsepower.  These vehicles will use a common safety cell to reduce costs and allow manufacturers and tuners to develop cars with their own bodywork based on production models from the B-class, C-Class and compact SUV segments or a Concept Car designed to tight technical criteria.

“I know that the discussions [for 2027] are ongoing and I’m positive,” Latvala added. “It is looking good, but things are going forward slowly, and I think the sooner we have more information, of course, will be better.”

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Toyota expects Ferrari to remain quickest in Spa WEC despite BoP hit

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David Floury, technical director of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, believes that its Italian rival will maintain at least some of the the advantage it showed last time out at Imola before tactical errors when it rained allowed the Japanese manufacturer to come through to win. 

Floury intimated that that the BoP changes for the Spa 6 Hours on Saturday will not fully close up the field in the WEC’s Hypercar class. 

“The picture should be similar but with smaller gaps,” said Floury. 

Asked if the Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar will remain in the ascendent, he replied: “I think so.”

He pointed to Ferrari’s pace in this race last year when it claimed a podium behind the two Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMHs as further evidence that it will still be strong around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps this weekend. 

“Ferrari showed its pace last year, and I don’t expect a different picture,” he explained. 

Ferrari has taken a 12kg hit in minimum weight under the BoP for Spa as well as losing 4kW (5bhp) in maximum power, whereas the Toyota has gained 4kg and lost 1kW. 

The Toyota will go to the grid 21kg heavier than in 2023, though with 3kW more power. 

Ferrari’s 499P, meanwhile, is 13kg heavier than last year and has 3kW less power. 

When asked to comment on the BoP changes, Floury replied: “Next question.”

Manufacturers, teams and drivers are forbidden from talking about on the BoP in the WEC sporting rules on pain of sanction by the stewards. 

Floury believes that Toyota will have a fight on its hands to repeat the Imola victory this weekend at Spa in the face of an expected performance deficit to Ferrari.

“We will need to be clever to win here,” he explained referencing a weather forecast that is predicting a dry weekend. 

“And this time it looks like we will not be helped by the weather: we will have to be even more clever.”

Floury suggested that the balance between Toyota and Porsche will be similar to Imola last month when they battled over the final spot on the podium behind the Ferraris through the dry period of the race. 

“It was very close: it was a tiny gap — it could have gone one way or the other,” he said.

Ferrari looked set for a 1-2 finish on home ground in Italy before opting to leave both its factory cars and the sister satellite entry from AF Corse out on slicks when it rained. 

It admitted to tactical errors, which included not splitting the strategies on the two works cars.

That allowed the #7 Toyota shared by Kamui Kobayashi, Nick de Vries and Mike Conway to take the victory. 

Practice for the Spa 6 Hours, round three of the 2024 WEC, kicks off at 11:30 local time on Thursday.

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2025 WRC Rally1 prototype “not so exciting” after first test

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Evans was offered a brief taste of the future when he piloted a modified Toyota GR Yaris during his pre-event Croatia Rally test last month.

Fan vision captured from the test showcased the GR Yaris running with revised aerodynamics centred around the rear wing, which appeared to conform to the FIA’s proposed 2025 regulations. It is understood Toyota is the only team that has attempted to create and test a 2025 prototype.

The FIA intends to reduce the performance of Rally1 cars for next season by removing hybrid power alongside a reduction in aero and air restrictor, to bring the cars more in line with Rally2 vehicles. This combined with a proposed upgrade kit for Rally2 cars is hoped to create a larger entry of competitors to battle at the sharp end of rallies next year.

The new regulations have been strongly opposed by WRC teams and drivers, with the former requesting the current rules stay in place until the end of 2026.

Asked for his opinion on the car following the test, Evans was blunt in his response stating it was “as expected” before elaborating further.

“I can tell you that it was not so exciting,” he said.

“I started and finished my run, so I guess if that is your definition of driveable, then I guess it was.”

Pressed on if this is the right direction for the WRC next year, he replied: “My opinion is quite clear.”

The FIA is understood to be working on a compromise with teams regarding the 2025 technical regulations, which could be communicated to stakeholders this month, before June’s World Motor Sport Council meeting. 

FIA road sport director Andrew Wheatley offered further details of the proposed rule changes for 2025 during a media roundtable in Croatia. 

“At the start of the five-year Rally1 process it was very clear that the hybrid element was a three-year contract, and that is what we have with [supplier] Compact Dynamics, but we are not changing the concept of Rally1,” he said. 

“The only discussion we are having about changing Rally1 is to modify the rear wing. We want to take one plane of the rear wing off, we will keep the top plane.

“The changes are half of the spoiler, it is removing the hybrid unit, and it is compensating the weight difference, which means a smaller restrictor so effectively the power to weight ratio is negated.”

 
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Toyota shuffles its WRC manufacturer points scorers for Portugal

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Reigning constructor world champions Toyota will field both its part-time drivers in the same event for the first time this season in Portugal next week as it looks to widen its seven-point gap over Hyundai in the championship.

As a result, Toyota has nominated current world champion Rovanpera and eight-time world champion Ogier to score manufacturer points alongside this year’s title contender Elfyn Evans. Rovnapera has won the previous two Portugal WRC rounds, while Ogier is a five-time winner of the event – sharing the record for the most victories with Markku Alen. It means the team’s other full-time driver Katsuta will be fighting purely for driver points on Portugal’s gravel roads.     

Toyota team principal Jari-Matti Latvala stated at the start of the season that the manufacturers crown was the team’s first objective and says the championship’s new points system has made harder to make an impact. 

“It will be great to have all four of our drivers with us in Portugal. This year we wanted to bring them all together on at least one rally and this was a good opportunity to do it,” said Latvala.

“With the new points system, it’s been difficult to make big differences in the manufacturers’ championship so far. In Portugal we will have three drivers that have won the event before, plus Taka who has also been very fast, so it’s a strong line-up for this rally.

“Kalle has been very successful there the last two years, while Seb has won it five times before. Elfyn’s road position could be more challenging, but he just needs to keep concentrating on maximising his points against his championship rivals.

“Taka has also been driving very well and has the capability to fight for the podium. But we know the competition will be strong and I’m sure it will be another big fight for the top positions in Portugal.”

While Katsuta says he won’t have the “stress” of fighting for manufacturer points, the Japanese driver has a podium in his sights having come close on two occasions in the past, finishing fourth in 2021 and 2022.

“Portugal is basically my favourite rally of course and I will try to do my best,” Katsuta told Motorsport.com.

“I’m not scoring points for the team so there will be no stress and no pressure. I will try to do the maximum that I can.

“My main target is to get a podium as I have finished fourth twice there. If the pace is really good all weekend I will try to push as much as I can.”

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Toyota weighs up third Hypercar for WEC

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The Japanese manufacturer has revealed that it could take a leaf out of arch-rival Ferrari’s book and run a third car on a satellite basis in the future.

But Toyota WEC race director Rob Leupen has revealed that it is already too late to put such a plan into place for next season and that an extra full-season entry in the Hypercar class could not come on stream before 2026.

«We see what Ferrari is doing with its customer or satellite car, and we like that,» Leupen told Motorsport.com.

«Clearly running an extra car gives you more possibilities, so it is something we are looking into. We are reviewing it.»

The lead time involved in building an additional car and setting up the infrastructure to run it would make it impossible for a third GR010 to arrive in the WEC in 2025, explained Leupen.

«If we were going to do it next year, we would have had to have made the decision already, and at the moment nothing is decided,» he said.

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 — Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

«It cannot be a short-term decision because we know what the lead times for all the components would be in the current circumstances.»

Toyota favours going the Ferrari route: the factory AF Corse team runs the additional 499P LMH for this year driven by Robert Kubica and works drivers Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman on a customer basis.

«We are not at the stage yet where we say this is how we want to do it, but if you ask me, the way Ferrari does it, I like that,» said Leupen.

He stressed that the complexities of running a four-wheel-drive LMH would mitigate against the direction Porsche has taken by selling its 963 LMDh to privateer teams.

An additional Toyota would not be able to accrue WEC manufacturer’s points and instead would compete in the World Cup for Teams in which the extra AF Ferrari and the Jota and Proton Competition Porsches currently participate.

What is unclear is if there would be room for an additional Toyota the year after next.

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Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo

The WEC grid is on course to expand to 40 cars next year at the same time as manufacturers look certain to be obliged to run two cars.

With the arrival of Aston Martin with two Valkyrie LMHs, an expansion of the current one-car Cadillac, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini Hypercar programmes would potentially mean the grid is oversubscribed.

Asked if there would be room for an additional Toyota with a continued expansion of the Hypercar field, Leupen replied: «How many cars does Porsche run? How many cars does Ferrari run? So why should we not run three?»

Leupen added that there could be an overlap between the GR010 LMH and the hydrogen combustion prototype it is planning to develop after the reveal of the GR H2 Concept at last year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.

The new hydrogen class is not set for an introduction into the series until at least 2027.



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Toyota not “getting over excited” over WEC Imola triumph

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David Floury, technical director at Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, made the claim after Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway took victory in the Imola 6 Hours after Ferrari made two key strategic errors.

«I don’t think we should be over-excited because it was a race decided on a tyre call, not on pure pace,» he said.

«If you look at pure pace on fastest lap time, Ferrari is four tenths faster than us. We won without being fastest, so it was won on strategy and team execution.»

He added that the lack of pace of the GR010 in comparison with Ferrari’s 499P LMH was «not something we are happy with».

Floury paid tribute to Kobayashi’s drive over the final two hours to seal the victory when rain started to fall.

The Japanese driver, who is also team principal of the TGR WEC squad, had to go into extreme fuel-save mode over his final stint to avoid the need for a late splash-and-dash stop at the same time as fending off a challenge from the factory Porsche 963 LMDh with Kevin Estre at the wheel.

«When we started the final stint we were scratching our heads a bit, wondering how we were going to manage it,» explained Floury.

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 — Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries

Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo

«Kamui did a fantastic job-saving energy while staying in front.

«We did the job today: the team did the perfect execution and Kamui was brilliant at the end.»

Ferrari was in the ascendency for nearly four hours in Sunday’s race before delaying the change from slicks to wet-weather tyres on both factory cars and the customer or satellite AF Corse entry when it started to rain.

The Italian manufacturer admitted to making tactical mistakes after the race, saying that it misinterpreted its weather forecast.

It also revealed that a plan to split its strategies on the two factory cars was not executed as a result of what it described as a communication problem.

The victory for Toyota on Sunday follows a disappointing performance in the Qatar 1812Km WEC season-opener in March, in which it scored a best result of fifth, a lap in arrears of the winning Porsche Penske Motorsport entry.

A Balance of Performance change helped shake up the order at Imola, although Floury hinted that he believes that the playing field has yet to be fully levelled in the Hypercar class yet.

He talked about the discrepancies in straightline speed between the cars after both qualifying and the race.

#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P Hypercar of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen

#50 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P Hypercar of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Floury described the 5-6km/h difference in top speeds between the 499P and the GR010 as «big in a BoP world» after qualifying and then suggested that Ferrari was «out of sight» post-race.

A new component in the BoP known as «power gain» is set for introduction in the Hypercar class of the WEC this year with the aim of levelling the performance profiles of the cars down the straights.

A plus or minus figure will be applied to the maximum power figure for each car above 210km/h (130mph) to more accurately match their acceleration and top speeds.

The system was trialled by some manufacturers during the pre-Qatar Prologue test and had looked set for an Imola introduction.

The FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, which jointly run the WEC, have yet to reveal to the manufacturers when it will be introduced.

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