Toyota to return to Le Mans in 2012 – with a hybrid!

Toyota to return to Le Mans in 2012 – with a hybrid!
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Toyota has announced that it will make a return to the Le Mans 24 Hours endurance race next year, and it will do so with a new hybrid-powered car.

Its return to Le Mans, where it last competed as a manufacturer in the late 1990s running the GT-One, will be with a new LMP1 chassis that will be designed, developed and produced by Toyota Motorsport in Germany, equipped with a hybrid petrol powertrain engineered by Toyota in Japan.

Le Mans will be just one of a number of races Toyota proposes to enter in the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, where it is seeking to further explore the potential of its hybrid technology through competition.

The new team will be based at Toyota Motorsport’s Cologne headquarters, and the LMP1-based race car will be rolled out in early 2012 for an extensive pre-season testing programme.

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Anthony Lim

Anthony Lim believes that nothing is better than a good smoke and a car with character, with good handling aspects being top of the prize heap. Having spent more than a decade and a half with an English tabloid daily never being able to grasp the meaning of brevity or being succinct, he wags his tail furiously at the idea of waffling - in greater detail - about cars and all their intrinsic peculiarities here.

 

Comments

  • confused on Oct 17, 2011 at 11:26 am

    The more the merrier. Nicer competition next year.

    p/s: I’m an Audi fan

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  • kwing on Oct 17, 2011 at 12:10 pm

    hopefully mazda come out with something with their rotary and join the race too….

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  • Naim1M on Oct 17, 2011 at 12:15 pm

    F-Duct! :D

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  • diablo on Oct 17, 2011 at 12:24 pm

    Naim1M, its no F-duct I’m afraid as that device is banned in Le Mans. It’s just a fin introduced in the rule books for 2011 onwards

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  • LE buruk on Oct 17, 2011 at 12:32 pm

    more competitor = more fun…=)
    go toyota…

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  • interesting, now Le Mans is currently dominated by Pug & Audi turbodiesel….let see whether Toyota petrol hybrid can break this dominate, then Pug will definitely bring its diesel hybrid tech….getting interesting

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  • nebula87 on Oct 17, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    it reminds me of a 4×4 model racing car…XD

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  • 2012..yes cant wait!

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