Controversy after Ferrari victory at Le Mans: “We lost because of politics”

The call ‘Balance of Performance’ (BoP) of the Resistance World Cup, or balance of performance in Spanish, is a tool used to avoid large differences between the competitors of the highest category of Hypercars. By changing some parameters of the cars such as maximum power or adding weight ballast to some cars, the competition tries to be as equal as possible. And this is exactly what caused the controversy Ferrari wins the 24 Hours of Le Mansa surprising victory for marking the end of the massive dominance of Toyota, which won not only the last five editions of this event, but also the first three races of the year in the World Endurance Championship.

After Toyota clearly dominated Sunday’s races at Sebring, Portimao and Spawith better sustained speed than the Ferraris, came a controversial change to the aforementioned BoP that affected Toyota more than others. After the first races, the ACO and the WEC decided to change the BoP for the 24 Hours to balance their top category, a surprise and unexpected change, because in theory the BoP should be the same as at Spa and the regulation indicates that these equivalences should be checked every two races. But after what happened in Spa, there were important changes.

Toyota, the most affected by the new BoP

Toyota was the most affected by this change: A weight ballast of 37 kilograms was added, up to 1,080 kilograms. In this way, the GR010-Hybrid rolled into Le Mans with 50 kilograms more than the Vanwall or the two Glickenhaus units. For its part, the Ferrari increased by 24 kilograms (a total of 1,064 kilograms), so it had an advantage over the Toyota of 16 kilograms less.

Toyota’s president’s complaint

Ferrari may not have shown its full potential in the first three rounds to surprise Le Mans. But in any case, after this change in the weights set by the BoP before Le Mans, Ferrari was the fastest in qualifying (he achieved a double on the front row) and showed a higher race speed than the Toyota, a something that never happened until now. Toyota was quick to complain.

He did so in the words of his president, Akio Toyoda. Japanese people recalling how much Toyota has done for the World Endurance Championship, remaining from 2018 as the only official manufacturer in contention pending a regulatory change that will be more noticeable for more brands, but that his efforts to keep this championship alive are rewarded by a policy against it. It should be remembered that since 2018, BoP has been changing in search of balancing the competition, as well as in the previous leading category of LMP1, but Toyota has always been far superior. It was the first time a car had ever hit him so hard.

“Audi withdrew in 2016, Porsche disappeared from 2018 and only Toyota remained in the top flight at Le Mans and fought. We really welcome the return of the other manufacturers this year. What we do is ‘sport where athletes fight’. That’s motor sport. This is certainly not an engine ‘policy’ that exposes the stubbornness of manufacturers. I mean, I want drivers, engineers and mechanics to race in a place that’s going to last for the next 100 years. When I was looking at the ranking, I thought: ‘We lost because of politics'”Toyoda said after the qualifying session.

Akio wasn’t the only one who came out against the BoP. Also the Toyota ambassador, Alex Wurz. “Are we happy now? No, because the BoP came at the last minute and we were surprised by the way it was announced and the timing, which was contrary to what we originally believed”he pointed out at a press conference.

10 days before

It should be noted that the BoP change was announced 10 days before the start of the race, not enough time for the Japanese team to find a way to counter this imbalance, an element that directly affects performance, but not only in terms. of pure speed per lap, as well as in terms of consumption, tire wear, something key to plan the best possible racing strategy from the pit stops and the duration of the racing sessions. The controversy was filed.