World Champions and Le Mans winners TOYOTA GAZOO Racing made an early start to the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season with a successful two-day Prologue test at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain.
The new season is scheduled to kick off on 1 September at Silverstone so, just five weeks after the conclusion of the 2018-2019 campaign at Le Mans, all WEC teams were present in Barcelona for the traditional official pre-season test.
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing gave a public debut to a revised TS050 HYBRID, which features updated aerodynamics. The 2019-2020 car has changed little mechanically and uses the same monocoque design introduced in 2016, therefore as expected it was extremely reliable over the 16 hours of testing.
Over a combined 917 laps, 4,268km, in the hot Spanish sun, the two TS050 HYBRIDs ran through a programme of aerodynamic and tyre evaluations, as well as tests on various hybrid powertrain settings, designed to complete on-track preparations for the new season, with no further testing planned before the Silverstone race.
The test was the first opportunity to assess the impact of recent changes to increase the minimum weight of the TS050 HYBRID by 40kg compared to the start of last season, although the WEC had never previously visited Barcelona so no lap time comparison was possible.
By the end of the two days, the TS050 HYBRIDs, which won seven of eight races last season, were at the top of the timing sheets thanks to a best lap of 1min 29.141secs from José María López in the #7 TS050 HYBRID he shares with Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.
Kazuki Nakajima’s lap put the #8 car, which he drives alongside Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley, second just 0.046secs behind, while the third-placed #1 Rebellion car was 0.267secs behind.
“We’ve had a positive two days and it felt good to get more familiar with the TS050 HYBRID, which is surprisingly different from my previous car in WEC,” commented Harltey. “There’s always a lot to learn with a new car but I’m happy with the progress and I feel up to speed. It was helpful to adjust to driving with traffic again and it also felt good to work together with my new team; the engineers, the mechanics and the other drivers have all been very welcoming.”
In addition to the regular racers, this week’s test was the first public appearance as TOYOTA GAZOO Racing test and reserve driver for Thomas Laurent. The young Frenchman completed 78 laps on his second test outing for the team, driving the #7 car in the morning, then the #8 in the afternoon.
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