Toyota Introduces its New TS030 Hybrid Le Mans Endurance Racer

You lose some, you win some. About a week after Peugeot unexpectedly axed its Le Mans racing program, Toyota revealed its all-new TS030 Hybrid endurance prototype, which is the spiritual successor to the TS010 and TS020 cars that participated at Le Mans during the 1990s.

The Japanese firm’s new endurance racer features the THS-R (Toyota Hybrid System – Racing) powertrain that couples an all-new 3.4-liter normally-aspirated V8 petrol engine to a hybrid system with capacitor storage developed by official team partner Nisshinbo.

Toyota said that it would be testing the car to decide if it will use an electric motor powering the front wheels developed by Aisin AW or one that drives the rear wheels from official team partner DENSO, as the regulations restrict deployment to only two wheels.

The TS030 is built on a brand new carbon fibre LMP1 chassis developed by Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) in Cologne, Germany, which also serves as the new team’s headquarters.

Toyota said that a driver line-up of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima has already been confirmed for one of two cars it is preparing while discussions are still ongoing to finalize the driver line-up for the other.

The new TS030 Hybrid will make its racing debut on May 5 in the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, which is the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, while Toyota’s racing team also intends to enter two cars in the subsequent Le Mans 24 Hours in June.