Photo : DR - Toyota Hybrid Racing

The new Toyota TS030 HYBRID took to the track Thursday afternoon for a marathon practice session of 30 hours on the Paul Ricard circuit in Le Castellet. Five of the six drivers who will participate in the upcoming 24 Hours of Le Mans drove long stints to evaluate the car. This was the second test session after the shake-down in January. Now the team will focus on preparing for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, the first race of the FIA World Endurance Championship for the Japanese manufacturer.

Sébastien Buemi, in his first test as an official TOYOTA Racing driver, started the marathon session before yielding his place to his teammate Hiroaki Ishiura, the three drivers of the sister car also took part in the session of long runs that was not without a few wrinkles, according of Hisatake Murata, the project manager of the hybrid car: “This was the first time we have run the TOYOTA HYBRID System - Racing over such a long test session so we never expected a trouble-free week and we did experience a few issues, but nothing major. Thanks to a large amount of data and the detailed feedback of all the drivers, we have a lot of information about how the THS-R powertrain behaves. We have been able to use this already to refine our systems and before the next tests we will work more on some of the issues raised. We have achieved our primary goals for this test and I am happy with how it has gone."

Pascal Vasselon, Technical Director: “We have done some valuable tests and this has contributed to our ongoing development of performance, reliability and organisation. The endurance test was an interesting experience; we were expecting challenges for everyone in the team and we weren’t disappointed! It’s not easy on the car or the people but we are all passionate about this project so a strong team spirit saw us through to the end. We are content with the results and the conclusions we have been able to draw, which will accelerate our preparations for our first race." 

The Swiss driver Sébastien Buemi appeared in endurance after leaving the world of Formula 1 and slipped into the cockpit of the Toyota for the first time, much to his satisfaction: “It was nice to discover more about the endurance racing environment. I have been in the driving simulator at TMG so I had an idea of what to expect but the reality is always a bit more complex. From a technical point of view the car is very impressive although we still need to make progress in some areas, which is normal at this stage of testing. I did some long stints and learned about new aspects of endurance racing, like driving at night, managing fuel consumption and adapting my driving style. I can see that every detail is important in order to be fast in this discipline." 

A discipline that Nicolas Lapierre knows now after several years at Oreca. “I did some development work and also participated in the endurance test. I am quite positive about how it went for a first long-distance simulation with the TOYOTA TS030 HYBRID. We can see how the car reacts to various different conditions, such as the cold track temperatures we may encounter during the night at Le Mans. The car felt pretty good in these conditions, which is not always easy here at Paul Ricard. The package is evolving and improving; we have fixed some issues, corrected some little details and overall we are moving forward.”

The next test session is scheduled for April before departure for Belgium and the Spa-Francorchamps, situated not far from the base of the team in Cologne, Germany.

Cecile Bonardel (quotes from team press release)

Photo : LE CASTELLET (VAR, FRANCE), CIRCUIT PAUL RICARD, FRIDAY 17th FEB 2012. The first full scale practice session successful for the new hybrid car from Toyota.