The TS030 Hybrid’s debut over at last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans might have been marred by the unfortunate crash and technical difficulties suffered by this new Toyota race machine. But will that be an excuse for them to lay low on this year’s showdown over at Le Mans? Not a chance as Toyota had recently revealed their revised TS030 Hybrid at the first official testing of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Taking place at Paul Ricard in southern France, Toyota’s spearhead in conquering the endurance scene now houses a revised version of the Toyota Racing hybrid system which features a super capacitor-based system, delivering an extra 300-horsepower to the already-mighty 530-horsepower coming out from the 3.4-liter V8 engine.
And power was not the only part that they have tweaked as the TS030 Hybrid also gets a revised aerodynamic package and chassis to not only improve the performance, but also for reliability during the long hours of racing.
But their journey to the podium is not an easy one as Audi had also updated their R-18 e-tron Quattro racer, and surely other LMP1 contenders will not take Le Mans easily. Toyota will field two cars this year, with Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima piloting the number 7 car while the combination of Anthony Davidson, Stephane Sarrazin and Sebastien Buemi will be in the number 8 car.
