The FIA World Endurance Championship heads to Japan this weekend, for round two of the 2019/20 season. With the first round at Silverstone in the bag, the series has now touched down in the land of the Rising Sun for the first flyaway race. The outcome at Silverstone perhaps left more questions than answers. What are the talking points for the prototypes heading into round two of Season 8?
Will Toyota be toppled?
Despite new regulations designed to slow them down, Toyota Gazoo Racing were still the dominating force on race day. The two TS050 Hybrids scored yet another one-two victory, with the Rebellions and Ginettas more than a lap down. There was conflicting tale after the race, with Rebellion's Derani telling Motorsport Week that they were more or less where they expected to be:
"I think it’s more or less what we expected," the Brazilian said. I think during a qualifying lap we are quicker because the new tyres can help a little bit. But as we go into the stint, it gets harder and harder, especially with traffic, so it’s more or less where we should have been. Unfortunately with the penalty at the end, I’m not quite sure for what it was, it made us lose some ground, but it’s more or less what we expected."
This statement was contradicted by Toyota's Sebastien Buemi, who questioned the strong pace the privateers had shown in practice:
"I don’t understand how it’s possible that they were so close in practice," Buemi said. "We had similar laptimes in practice and they slowed down a lot. So either they do practice with a lot less fuel, you know, which is not very representative, or they downtuned the engine for safety reasons, I don’t know. But they’ve been quite a lot slower in the race than they were in testing, so it’s a bit difficult to understand. I’m sure they’ll have an answer."
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Fuji Speedway is host to the championship's second round, which means that success ballast will now come into play for the first time. The two hybrid Toyotas have been held back even more now. Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, who won at Silverstone, has been hit the hardest. The #7 TS050 Hybrid has seen a handicap placed on its hybrid energy deployment and fuel allowance, which is expected to cost them 1.4 seconds a lap.
The #8 of Brendon Hartley, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi has a one second penalty, while the #5 Team LNT Ginetta G60-LT-P1 has been handed a 0.66s handicap, the heaviest of all privateers.
The initial Equivalence of Technology restrictions placed on the Toyotas at Silverstone seemed promising at first, with Rebellion even topping the sheets in first practice. Race day brought a different story, with Toyota's hybrid deployment proving especially difficult for the non-hybrids to overcome. With the hybrid deployment now restricted to the tune of 1.4 seconds a lap, the possibility of Toyota finally being overcome on track seems a realistic scenario.
That being said, the Toyotas will not go down without a fight, especially since this is their home race. They also have an extremely strong record at Fuji Speedway, winning all but one round since 2012. On top of that, the privateers are now one down as the #3 Rebellion, which took a podium at Silverstone, will not be on the grid again until the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in April.
The one thing that does definitely hang in the favor of the non-hybrid runners is that they have been penalized far lighter than the Toyotas. As stated, the #5 Ginetta has been penalized by 0.66s, while the #6 sister car has not been slowed down at all. This is because it was last in class at Silverstone, and therefore the reference car. The only remaining Rebellion sits at 0.03s slower, with Bruno Senna, Gustavo Menezes and Norman Nato now running 7 kilograms heavier than they did at Silverstone.
How will the LMP2 battle progress?
Cool Racing took a somewhat unexpected victory at Silverstone, with Antonin Borga and Nicolas Lapierre winning as a duo due to the absence of partner Alexandre Coigny. Coigny had suffered an injury in the European Le Mans Series race and was unable to compete, leaving the pair to claim a remarkable win ahead of Signatech Alpine Elf and Racing Team Nederland.
The latter had a very strong weekend at Silverstone, being right there in practice and claiming their first pole position in qualifying, before a penalty in the race cost them a possible first win. Their strong showing was undoubtely aided by Job van Uitert. Van Uitert, who is still silver-rated, showed strong pace throughout and was instrumental in their qualifying success. The Dutchman was there to replace Nyck de Vries, who had clashing Formula 2 commitments on that fateful weekend.
De Vries, now Formula 2 champion, is back in the car this weekend, reinstating the regular line-up of De Vries, Giedo van der Garde and Frits van Eerd. This puts bronze-rated Van Eerd back in the firing line for qualifying, making a second consecutive pole position a significantly harder task. The same goes for Cool Racing, who have Coigny back in the car as well.
This gives some LMP2's other strong teams an opportunity to bounce back. United Autosports, now with Oliver Jarvis in their ranks, will definitely want to put on a good showing after their WEC debut was ended by mechanical gremlins after less than a handful of laps. JOTA Sport and Jackie Chan DC Racing will also want to do better, after just missing out on the podium in fifth and fourth respectively.
Long story short: the 6 Hours of Fuji raises many question marks for prototype runners, and we'll get the answers on Saturday.
