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After winning the last couple of Le Mans races with its TS050, Toyota Gazoo Racing returns in 2021 with an all-new car for an all-new category. It’s called the GR010, and it will compete in the Le Mans Hypercar class. [credit: Toyota ]
The future of the 24 Hours of Le Mans is resolving into shape. On Friday, Toyota Gazoo Racing unveiled its new GR010 Hybrid, an all-wheel drive prototype that will compete in the overall win at the annual French race later this year (pandemic willing). It’s the first competitor to break cover from the new Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) class, which replaces the old LMP1h category that shone so brightly for a few short years in the middle of the last decade.
LMP1h gave rise to some of the fastest and most technologically advanced racing cars the world has ever seen. But it wasn’t cheap, and by 2018 Toyota was all that was left, its cars hobbled by ACO (the race organizers) to give the non-hybrid LMP1 privateer teams a fighting chance.
Car manufacturer interest in racing series waxes and wanes, and it doesn’t require much imagination to see how a combination of global economic uncertainty and an expensive ruleset could negatively impact participation. The ACO’s answer was a new category called the hypercar, which would open the doors to racing versions of those seven-figure slices of unobtainium-on-wheels like the Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin Valkyrie—albeit running at much lower power levels than the unrestricted road cars.
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