Toyota had to review everything with the TS050

Après une saison 2015 difficile pour Toyota, la marque nippone a revu sa copie en présentant la TS050. Cette nouvelle LMP1 dispose notamment d’un V6 bi-turbo en lieu et place du V8 de la TS040 et de batteries remplaçant le super-condensateur.

“We had clearly found the limits with the V8… but it was not robust enough depending on the conditions, such as temperature or altitude”, explained Pascal Vasselon, the technical director of Toyota Racing. “The turbo fixes that, you can extract more power and have better combustion to compensate for temperatures or altitude. »

The switch from supercapacitor to lithium-ion batteries will allow the TS050 to be registered in class 8 MJ, with the generator motors installed on the axles generating more power.

“This is a big novelty that requires a completely different management system. If everything seems the same, it is not. The energy levels are very different, which requires different management of charge and discharge levels. But it remains simple in terms of the cockpit... If braking is better provided by the generator motors, the traditional brakes will be less required. There is a risk that this will cause instability… This is one of the challenges to overcome when moving into class 8 MJ.”, explained the French engineer.

The Toyota TS050 is currently competing in the Prologue at Paul-Ricard with Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi et Kazuki Nakajima.