Toyota TS050 all Charged Up For Le Mans

Hybrid efficiency will be the order of the day when Toyota introduces their all-new TS050 Hybrid race cars to the world at the 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) prologue in France.

The 30-hour test run at Circuit Paul Ricard will allow Toyota GAZOO to tick off the last few boxes on their pre-run checklist before the start of the new season on May 5 in Belgium, with the Le Mans 24 Hours event taking place over June 16 and 17.

Toyota GAZOO’s impressive pre-season testing boasts over 21,000km of running over a total of 12 test-days. The 735kW Toyota TS050 race cars proved their grit, alongside drivers such as Formula One champion Fernando Alonso, who is confidently looking forward to increasing his new teams win streak after Toyota won the previous three rounds of the 2017 WEC season.

Joining Alonso is Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima in car #8, while Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María Lopez pilot car #7.

Toyota is also proud of the efficiency improvements on their latest hybrid contender for Le Mans, with the 2017 TS050 setting a record for the fastest lap on the iconic circuit, all while using 35% less fuel than its predecessor in 2012.

“Our mission is to succeed on the track and deliver technology to future road cars; endurance racing is the perfect environment for this,” said Hisatake Murata, team president of Toyota GAZOO Racing.

Fernando Alonso also chimed in, expressing his excitement toward finally racing for Toyota on some of the most incredible circuits in the world such as Le Mans. “The car is amazing, something very special,” he said. “The technology that the hybrid cars have was unthinkable a few years ago.”

Toyota will participate in the championship with a parallel objective of researching and developing hybrid technology for their road cars, of which more than 11-million hybrid electric road cars have been sold.