Kiwi racer's version of Toyota hypercar revealed

In pulling the wraps off the new Le Mans racer that Brendon Hartley will compete in, the make has dropped more hints that the road-going version is nearly ready.

 BRENDON Hartley’s new Toyota-provided company car for 2021 has been fully revealed – and it’s a world away from your usual fleet hack Camry or Corolla.

The Kiwi racer has imparted excitement about the GR010 Hybrid, not only Toyota’s new Le Mans Hypercar and World Endurance Championship challenger but also the racing version of a road-going version for public consumption.

Hartley’s car has numbers on the door and nose ad will be tested in the upcoming 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship – whether he ever achieves the road legal version, called the Toyota GR Super Sport, that’s based on the same mechanicals, is as yet unclear. 

The GR Super Sport production car was shown off during celebrations surrounding last year’s Le Mans 24-Hours and has also been previewed by a concept, immediately below. 

The Palmerston North-born and raised driver is pretty fizzed about the competition car, which has only just been fully unveiled by the Toyota Gazoo Racing equipe he now competes with.

The racing car runs a 500kW twin-turbocharged 3.5-litre V6 and a 200kW electric motor. The petrol engine sends drive to the rear wheels via a seven-speed sequential gearbox, while the electric motor powers the front wheels.

 “Fans are going to be pleasantly surprised with the GR010 Hybrid; it looks like a mix of an LMP1 and a road car,” said Hartley, who came to Toyota’s sports car racing team a year ago after a hugely successful career with Porsche, for which he won world endurance titles and the Le Mans race, as well as a stint in Formula One, with the then Torro Rosso team.

“Endurance racing has always been a proving ground for new technology and now it is even more road car relevant; the GR010 Hybrid previews a car which the end user will experience on the road.

“It’s great to drive too, particularly with the hybrid four-wheel-drive which is a nice sensation from a driver’s perspective.” 

The new car has a clear family resemblance to the outgoing TS050 Hybrid LMP1 that claimed the 2018-19 and 2019-20 WEC drivers' and manufacturers' titles, as well as three consecutive Le Mans 24 Hours victories in 2018-20.

But Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon has stressed in an interview with British motorsport magazine Autosport that few components have been retained from its predecessor.

"Except the generic parts like switches, sensors and such, there are hardly any carry-over parts between the two cars because the regulation philosophy is very different," he said. "It is a completely new car."

 Hartley says the big difference when considering his new ride with the TS050 Hybrid is the extra weight and a bit less horsepower and downforce, changes enforced by new rules.

“But it’s still just as much fun to drive. We have a fun challenge ahead of us to extend the Toyota Gazoo Racing legacy at Le Mans and in WEC by continuing our winning run.”

The powertrain is supported by an arsenal of chassis technology, including a mechanical locking differential, independent double wishbone suspension, push-rod dampers and a set of carbon-ceramic brake discs with mono-block calipers.

As the new FIA regulations limit the car’s power output to 500kW, Toyota has had to employ some electronic wizardry to keep the car legal. So, the ECU limits the petrol engine’s power according to the amount of assistance the electric motor can supply. When the battery pack has been depleted, the engine supplies its maximum output.

The striking new look of the racing prototype reflects the appearance of its inspiration, the GR Super Sport hypercar which made its public debut during a demonstration run and ceremonial trophy return at the 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours and is currently in development.

Toyota Gazoo Racing enters its ninth season in WEC with the same driver line-up it fronted for the 2019-2020 campaign.

Newly-crowned world champions Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López will drive the No.7 GR010 Hybrid while Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley race the No.8 car. Nyck de Vries continues in his role as test and reserve driver.

They have already started an intense programme of developing the car, with two three-day tests already completed as the team adapts to new regulations which are a significant shift in terms of performance and philosophy.

Bamber and Hartley’s amazing hyper-racer – in your garage!

A car with a Kiwi motorsport connection is among a fleet of amazing design studies revealed by Porsche.

IMAGINE the sheer delicious madness of it – a road-legal version of the 330kmh-plus 919 Hybrid LMP1, the all-dominant force of recent international prototype sports car racing that Kiwis Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber took to Le Mans victories and world endurance championship titles.

It could have happened.

The idea for a ‘919 Street’, the version of Porsche’s technology masterpiece you could have used every day is disclosed in a new book, ‘Porsche Unseen’, which reveals just that car as one of 15 radical concepts from 2005 to 2015 that never came to be.

A look in into the inner workings of a place normally completely off-limits to public scrutiny, the famous maker’s design studio – Style Porsche - in Weissach, Germany, also unwraps concept cars that were developed as a source of inspiration for the company’s designers.

As today’s images show, the ‘919 Street’ reached the same point as the other subjects of the book, a one-to-one clay scale model.

 The styling concept has the same dimensions and wheelbase as the racing car that debuted in 2014 then dominated the long-distance circuit racing scene for four years, claiming three consecutive world championships and three straight victories in the arduous Le Mans 24 Hours in France.

Conceivably it would have retained the racer’s radical V4 two-litre petrol engine and advanced hybrid drivetrains that took it to 330kmh in race trim but considerably faster still in the ultimate track lap record-beating ‘Evo’ trim, that Porsche created after the car retired from LMP1 at the end of 2017.

Unchanged mechanically to the racing model, but simply with aerodynamic refinements beyond those allowed for LMP1, the Evo often beat Formula One lap times.

Whanganui-born Bamber and two team-mates achieved the 919 Hybrid’s debut Le Mans victory, in 2015, and his pal from childhood and the NZ motorsport scene Hartley, from Palmerston North, was in a crew that snared victory in the car on the French circuit in 2017 (he then achieved his second Le Mans, this year with Toyota).

Bamber and Hartley also teamed to take the 2017 World Endurance Championship in the car, a second such time for Hartley, who’d also been in the crew that claimed the 2015 world title.

The 919 Street wasn’t the only concept fuelled by Porsche’s rich racing spirit; there were two others created under the ‘Living Legends’ mantle.

The 917 Living Legend (above) was crafted by designers in 2013 as a modern interpretation of the legendary race car that had the same numerical designation.

 This one was created to mark the brand returning to LMP1 with the 919, but was kept under wraps until spring 2019, when the maker released the first photos as a way to celebrate the 917 race car’s 50th anniversary.

 The concept proper was presented to the public for the first time in the ‘Colours of Speed’ exhibition at the Porsche Museum last year.

There’s also the 906 Living Legend study (above) from 2005. As the name suggests, the Porsche 906 street-legal racing car from 1966 served as inspiration for the proportions and body design of this vision of a super sports car. The red contrasting front bonnet and the layout of the headlights are in the style of the famous car that won the 1966 Targa Floria, a daunting road race in Sicily since discontinued on safety grounds, in the hands of privateers Willy Mairesse and Gerhard Muller.

 Another featured concept that was never to be that also has racing links is a battery-propelled passenger van.

The maker identifies that the inspiration for the Vision Renndienst, a family-friendly “space shuttle” rendered in 2018, was a far more utilitarian Volkswagen van, used as a support vehicle by the Porsche factory racing team decades ago.

Envisaged to carry up to six people, Porsche’s concept has streamlined surfaces, minimalist headlights, a sporty front fascia and a long sloping roof. Designers also installed five-spoke alloy wheels and a traditional Porsche rear end with a full-width light bar.