One month after the 87th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship season is already kicking off this week in Barcelona with the official testing sessions known as the Prologue. TOYOTA GAZOO Racing is among the competitors ready to hit the track. 

The Japanese team's driver line-ups are as follows: the #7 will be shared by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López, and the #8 will be entrusted to Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley (the latter to replace Fernando Alonso). Thomas Laurent will serve as a test and reserve driver for the team in conjunction with his programme in the LMP2 class with Signatech Alpine.

The TS050 Hybrid has undergone a few aerodynamics modifications and certain aspects of the car have been fine-tuned to enhance reliability. Team President Hisatake Murata exlains the team's game plan: "Even though it is only a few weeks since our Le Mans victory, we are already looking forward to a new season of the WEC, when we will have the honour of being defending world champions. It is the final season of the LMP1-Hybrid regulations as well as the last season for our TS050 Hybrid, which has achieved so much and, we all hope, can still achieve more before it heads to the museum. Our ultimate target is to win Le Mans for a third consecutive year and this would be a fitting tribute to the TS050 Hybrid and everyone who has worked so hard since 2015 to design, develop, produce and operate this car."

As TOYOTA GAZOO Racing fields the TS050 Hybrid in its final season, the team will also be preparing for the new Hypercar class expected to kick off during the 2020-2021 FIA World Endurance Championship season. Toyota has already confirmed its participation.