The FIA and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, along with manufacturers, have agreed upon new protocols for the World Endurance Championship (WEC). This comes after the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID lost 11 minutes in the pits during the Portimao WEC round due to a rear driveshaft torque sensor malfunctioning. Toyota requested to continue running, but they were forced to pit the car, resulting in a rear corner replacement. The previous protocols required two stints’ worth of data to be gathered before a request for continued running was agreed, but new protocols will now allow a car to run in default or back-up mode if there is a repeat failure early in the race.
New Protocols
Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon revealed that the new protocols would be in place for the Spa 6 Hours, round three of the 2023 WEC. The driveshaft torque sensors are a critical component of the Hypercar formula because they measure the power output and the energy used over a stint, both of which are laid down in the Balance of Performance for each car running in Hypercar. The sensors on the front driveshafts of the four-wheel-drive Le Mans Hypercars, which race against the new rear-drive LMDhs in the top class of the WEC, also police the ban on the torque control that would be possible with a hybrid system on the forward axle. The back-up plan will involve the input shaft of the gearbox, which measures power, and running in default mode will offer no performance advantage. The performance of a car running in default mode would “somehow have to be downgraded but not much.”
Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie revealed that “we had to detune the car quite a lot to keep it legal” as a result of the failure at Portimao. He stressed that the teams must ensure that a car running in default mode remains within the parameters laid down by the BoP. It is unclear if the failures on the Toyota and the Peugeot two weeks ago were linked. Jansonnie revealed that the series was still awaiting answers from the manufacturer. Neither Toyota nor Peugeot revealed the identity of the maker of the sensors, but it is known to be California-based MagCanica, which has publicised its involvement in the WEC. Although the failures at Portimao were the first to occur during a race weekend in the WEC since LMH machinery arrived in the series in 2021, Vasselon revealed that there had been issues during testing.
Leave a Reply