WEC 2025

[gshevlin]

Toyota cannot be happy. They kept going all through the LMP1 drought of the late 2010s, when nearly every other manufacturer except Porsche quit. They very nearly quit after the 2023 BoP changes for Le Mans, which gifted Ferrari a victory in their first year.
Toyota has an alliance with Haas in F1. I would not be surprised if they withdraw from the WEC soon to focus on that.

[Tvetovnato]

Toyota’s season starts with LeMans. Watch them ”magically” get back on pace there all of a sudden, and then stay in the top fight for the remainder of the year.

[dialtone]

Bring out the pitchforks folks, I know you’ve been shining and sharpening them.

[AR3-GP]

Bring out the pitchforks folks, I know you’ve been shining and sharpening them.

Yeah this BoP is so bad the winner is likely going to lap everyone up to the 2nd and team mate likely to finish 2nd despite a 2-3 minutes repair in the pits.

And people had the courage to complain about Ferrari’s BoP the last 2 years at LeMans.

They really have no clue about how to BoP these cars.

[dialtone]

Yeah this BoP is so bad the winner is likely going to lap everyone up to the 2nd and team mate likely to finish 2nd despite a 2-3 minutes repair in the pits.

And people had the courage to complain about Ferrari’s BoP the last 2 years at LeMans.

They really have no clue about how to BoP these cars.

The 2nd Ferrari was lapped and the 1st Ferrari was well behind at Brazil when I wrote that, Ferrari was indeed not competitive.

My own analysis of the year on year BOP at Spa concluded that Toyota was sandbagging before Le Mans.

The problem is that it’s very easy to sandbag. You raise the ride height. You increase the tire pressures. You go slower.


They didn’t do a great job with balancing the Toyota to the others in Brazil, but the rest of the racing was good. Ferrari and Porsche had a very nice battle and if Toyota could have been brought to that level, the race win would have gone down to the wire. 6 Porsche got lucky with the FCY which allowed them to avoid a splash at the end. 51 Ferrari would have finished on the podium without the drive through penalty earlier in the race for FCY procedure infringement.

Hopefully it’s better in COTA. Toyota needs +20Kg just like they had earlier in the year and then it would be perfect.

Aside from the fun and games... clearly Toyota didn't get loved by the BoP and I wrote that. But what's the BMW or Porsche or Cadillac excuse here where their BoP was more favorable than what Ferrari got since Imola?

[AR3-GP]

The 2nd Ferrari was lapped and the 1st Ferrari was well behind at Brazil when I wrote that, Ferrari was indeed not competitive.

Brazil is the shortest track on the calendar and there were no safety cars in that race. 51 car should have finished in 2nd place without their drive through penalty. There was no reason for the 50 car to be slower than the 51 car.

Aside from the fun and games... clearly Toyota didn't get loved by the BoP and I wrote that. But what's the BMW or Porsche or Cadillac excuse here where their BoP was more favorable than what Ferrari got since Imola?

BMW, Porsche, and Cadillac are LMDH cars. It's a different (slower) platform. That's their "excuse". LMH cars need to be minimum 15-20kg heavier than LMDh cars because of the AWD and the better tire degradation characteristics of that platform, the latter fact which is also stated by the FIA's technical director.

FIA technical engineering director Thomas Chevaucher pointed out the “differences between LMH and LMDh in some of the components that can have an effect on tyre degradation”. He didn’t mention it, but he was alluding to the fact that LMH hybrids are four-wheel-drive and LMDh machinery rear-drive only.

https://www.autosport.com/wec/news/gary ... /10702670/


BOP adjustments can't be viewed in relative terms from the last race. Ferrari's BOP was wrong since the very first race when they started out far underweight for an LMH car that was competing for wins last season at a much higher weight. The fact that the new adjustment system needed 3 races just to put Ferrari at the same weight as the Porsche LMDH car (let alone, the actual weight difference which still needs to be around 15-20kg heavier) shows that the system doesn't work and championships would already be decided before it was capable of balancing the cars.

The FIA will burn this championship to the ground with their stupidity. Last year's BOP had actual competitions for the win at Spa, Le Mans, COTA, Bahrain, and Fuji. 3 manufacturers went to the final round with chances to win all of the titles. This year Ferrari has already swept the titles. Nothing other than a total implosion will take it away from them.

[dialtone]

BMW, Porsche, and Cadillac are LMDH cars. It's a different (slower) platform. That's their "excuse". LMH cars need to be minimum 15-20kg heavier than LMDh cars because of the AWD and the better tire degradation characteristics of that platform, the latter fact which is also stated by the FIA's technical director.

That's not it. I understand you are speaking about Ferrari, but Peugeot is an LMH car that if it was 15-20KG heavier would be getting lapped by LMGT3.

This is the 3rd race of the season, the BoP works on last 3 races, at Lemans Ferrari will probably be receiving a similar nerf in BoP. A blanket 15-20KG heavier car will never change that Ferrari is the most aerodynamic car of the lot and has always performed well in high speed tracks since their first season.

Power and weight aren't enough to handle BoP IMHO. Would be nice to see telemetry and understand where Toyota loses all of that time because I think Toyota is more influenced by power than it is by weight, Toyota is simply not as efficient of a car, they barely adapted the chassis from the LMP1 and still has a huge bubble for the driver (I read somewhere that Toyota is basically still designed for the regulation with 2 seats) the power gain is trying to adapt to this, but perhaps 8.3% gain still isn't enough.

[AR3-GP]

BMW, Porsche, and Cadillac are LMDH cars. It's a different (slower) platform. That's their "excuse". LMH cars need to be minimum 15-20kg heavier than LMDh cars because of the AWD and the better tire degradation characteristics of that platform, the latter fact which is also stated by the FIA's technical director.

That's not it. I understand you are speaking about Ferrari, but Peugeot is an LMH car that if it was 15-20KG heavier would be getting lapped by LMGT3.

This is the 3rd race of the season, the BoP works on last 3 races, at Lemans Ferrari will probably be receiving a similar nerf in BoP. A blanket 15-20KG heavier car will never change that Ferrari is the most aerodynamic car of the lot and has always performed well in high speed tracks since their first season.

Power and weight aren't enough to handle BoP IMHO. Would be nice to see telemetry and understand where Toyota loses all of that time because I think Toyota is more influenced by power than it is by weight, Toyota is simply not as efficient of a car, they barely adapted the chassis from the LMP1 and still has a huge bubble for the driver (I read somewhere that Toyota is basically still designed for the regulation with 2 seats) the power gain is trying to adapt to this, but perhaps 8.3% gain still isn't enough.

The reference for LMH is Toyota and Ferrari. There’s no point discussing the flawed cars of Peugeot and Aston Martin. LMH is fundamentally the superior platform. There is no situation where either manufacturer should have been lighter than Porsche or any other LMDH car. Ferrari weighed 1037 kg at Qatar while Porsche sat at 1064 kg. Insanity.

I’ve studied the weight impact for a very long time and the 15-20Kg platform assessment is correct. At Spa last year the Ferrari was 15 kg heavier than the Porsche. The Porsches led portions of the the race on merit and the Ferrari led portions of the race on merit. Porsche had the fastest laps but Ferrari was going to win from better tire deg until the red flag. Very balanced. For this year they decided to drop the 15kg from the Ferrar and make the two cars equal. And now Porsche is 1 second off the pace of Ferrari. Go figure. You can look at the BOP weights before the race and know which LMDh has a chance. If the weight offset isn’t high enough, the LMH will have more pace and better tire degradation. Like I said, 15-20 kg more than any LMDH is what you need at every race for Toyota and Ferrari. Toyota is about 14 kg than Porsche this weekend and qualified just behind but will match Porsche in the race. Ferrari is the outlier running equal weight to Porsche LMDH car when they should be at 1069kg or more.


Fortunately for Ferrari, the Le Mans BOP is separate. It does not depends on the last 3 races. So there a chance for any manufacturer to be too fast, or too slow. Accursed organization.

[dialtone]

The reference for LMH is Toyota and Ferrari. There’s no point discussing the flawed cars of Peugeot and Aston Martin. LMH is fundamentally the superior platform. There is no situation where either manufacturer should have been lighter than Porsche or any other LMDH car. Ferrari weighed 1037 kg at Qatar while Porsche sat at 1064 kg. Insanity.

This is an extremely subjective take. Since in your opinion Ferrari/Toyota are strong, they should be punished all the time, despite the fact that Porsche won WCC last year. The math behind BoP looks at results, not at the subjectivity of LMH is better than LMDh, which true as it is, doesn't obviously guarantee that you make a better or worse car, as AM and Peugeot prove.

I’ve studied the weight impact for a very long time and the 15-20Kg platform assessment is correct. At Spa last year the Ferrari was 15 kg heavier than the Porsche. The Porsches led portions of the the race on merit and the Ferrari led portions of the race on merit. Porsche had the fastest laps but Ferrari was going to win from better tire deg until the red flag. Very balanced. For this year they decided to drop the 15kg from the Ferrar and make the two cars equal. And now Porsche is 1 second off the pace of Ferrari. Go figure. You can look at the BOP weights before the race and know which LMDh has a chance. If the weight offset isn’t high enough, the LMH will have more pace and better tire degradation. Like I said, 15-20 kg more than any LMDH is what you need at every race for Toyota and Ferrari. Toyota is about 14 kg than Porsche this weekend and qualified just behind but will match Porsche in the race. Ferrari is the outlier running equal weight to Porsche LMDH car when they should be at 1069kg or more.

I sincerely hope you aren't telling me that 15kg are worth 1.5-1.9s a lap. Toyota qualified 0.5s behind the fastest Porsche. It doesn't seem equal to me even between the 2 you say are equal, 0.5s is not "just behind". Porsche has a good car that won WCC last year, I don't understand why you are fixating on these 15kg...

And of course here they are anyway trying to balance the race, not the quali per se.

[AR3-GP]

Porsche didn't win the WCC championship last year, Toyota did. #6 won the driver's championship because they were the most consistent.

This is an extremely subjective take. Since in your opinion Ferrari/Toyota are strong, they should be punished all the time,

Calling it a "punishment" is a total failure to understand what is means to balance the platforms and to balance the performance. Perhaps that is where your disconnect with the BOP system is. There's no reward for building a "fast" car in the championship. You only need to bring a car within the window and the BOP will do the rest. That is the premise of the championship. Whoever wants to build a car in the far edges of the performance window can do that, but they are not rewarded for it. They will be slowed. It is not a "punishment". It is performance balancing. Everyone knew that before they wasted resources trying to build a faster car than neccessary. The FIA seeks 100% convergence with a 0.3-0.4% tolerance. The BOP objectives were made public at the beginning of the year. This championship is not a race to build the "fastest" car. This is not Formula 1.

I sincerely hope you aren't telling me that 15kg are worth 1.5-1.9s a lap. Toyota qualified 0.5s behind the fastest Porsche. It doesn't seem equal to me even between the 2 you say are equal, 0.5s is not "just behind". Porsche has a good car that won WCC last year, I don't understand why you are fixating on these 15kg...

Like I said before, what Toyota lose in 1 lap pace, they gain over the race distance with superior tire degradation. We've seen it many times before. Toyota doesn't need to be quick in qualifying. When they are actually fast in qualifying, it means the others have no chance in the race (Sao Paolo...). In order to actually see a balanced race, it is a requirement that the LMDH cars are towards the front in qualifying because they carry more fuel (weight) due to smaller hybrid and are harder on the tires than the LMH cars due to lack of AWD. If the LMDH don't have a 1 lap pace advantage to "balance" this, then they will finish the stints far behind.

Ferrari LMH on poles everywhere is a non-starter for any race where you hope to have a balance between LMH and LMDh, just as it would be for Toyota on pole like Sao Paolo. LMH cars in front after qualifying is the clue that LMDh will not be competitive against them. Every single race in this championship where an LMH car started on pole, was also won by any lmH car. Only some races where an LMdh cars started on pole were also won by an LMDh car (Qatar, Fuji), and there are NO races where an LMDh car did not start on pole, and an LMDh car won the race (Spa was interrupted by red flag) because LMDh has a race pace disadvantage which must be offset by the peak performance.

[dialtone]

Porsche didn't win the WCC championship last year, Toyota did. #6 won the driver's championship because they were the most consistent.

This is an extremely subjective take. Since in your opinion Ferrari/Toyota are strong, they should be punished all the time,

Calling it a "punishment" is a total failure to understand what is means to balance the platforms and to balance the performance. Perhaps that is where your disconnect with the BOP system is. There's no reward for building a "fast" car

I don't understand why you have to be like that... These strong sentences "total failure to understand" do nothing for the conversation. I know BOP is about balance, I just use punish/reward as the terms for how BOP operates, you don't like it, too bad, you'll live with it anyway because I will continue to use those terms because I still can.

There is no need to be this aggressive all the time.

Like I said before, what Toyota lose in 1 lap pace, they gain over the race distance with superior tire degradation. We've seen it many times before. Toyota doesn't need to be quick in qualifying. When they are actually fast in qualifying, it means the others have no chance in the race (Sao Paolo...). In order to actually see a balanced race, it is a requirement that the LMDH cars are towards the front in qualifying because they carry more fuel (weight) due to smaller hybrid and are harder on the tires than the LMH cars due to lack of AWD. If the LMDH don't have a 1 lap pace advantage to "balance" this, then they will finish the stints far behind.

Ferrari LMH on poles everywhere is a non-starter for any race where you hope to have a balance between LMH and LMDh, just as it would be for Toyota on pole like Sao Paolo. LMH cars in front after qualifying is the clue that LMDh will not be competitive against them. Every single race in this championship where an LMH car started on pole, was also won by any lmH car. Only some races where an LMdh cars started on pole were also won by an LMDh car (Qatar, Fuji), and there are NO races where an LMDh car did not start on pole, and an LMDh car won the race (Spa was interrupted by red flag) because LMDh has a race pace disadvantage which must be offset by the peak performance.

I'm not even saying you are wrong, but you decidedly are looking for something that isn't this BoP. You are looking to balance classes with some static values per class and would treat LMH/LMDh as separate classes.

Here's an example though of why I think you are oversimplifying this matter:
Quali:
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Result ... PERCAR.PDF
Hyperpole:
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Result ... PERCAR.PDF


These are best sector times in quali+hyperpole. Ferrari #50 in hyperpole only has best S3, not S1 or S2. Ferrari also set that time on their first attempt while almost every other car improved some of their sector times on the 2nd attempt, but then tires didn't last the whole 2nd attempt (Ferrari's didn't either). So that tells me Ferrari had the tires up to temperature faster than the other cars, including the cars that are 15+kg lighter than Ferrari like Cadillac of A. Lynn who has the best S2 but an absolutely awful S1.

A. Lynn, to go further with the analysis, was 0.15s slower in hyperpole S1 than he was in qualifying S1, his S2 was a whopping 0.6s faster than in qualifying, and S3 was 0.1s faster. If A. Lynn had so much as matched his S1 in quali they were going to start 3rd, if they had improved by 0.1s they were 2nd. And this is the Cadillac which is 15kg lighter and has 12KW more power than the Ferrari.

There is far too little telemetry available to us to be able to be as sure as you are about 15kg of weight or what's influencing the performance of these cars.

[AR3-GP]

I don't understand why you have to be like that... These strong sentences "total failure to understand" do nothing for the conversation. I know BOP is about balance, I just use punish/reward as the terms for how BOP operates, you don't like it, too bad, you'll live with it anyway because I will continue to use those terms because I still can.

There is no need to be this aggressive all the time.

Bring out the pitchforks folks, I know you’ve been shining and sharpening them.

[dialtone]

I don't understand why you have to be like that... These strong sentences "total failure to understand" do nothing for the conversation. I know BOP is about balance, I just use punish/reward as the terms for how BOP operates, you don't like it, too bad, you'll live with it anyway because I will continue to use those terms because I still can.

There is no need to be this aggressive all the time.

Bring out the pitchforks folks, I know you’ve been shining and sharpening them.

You can't be serious... You are talking to me directly and telling me that I "totally fail to understand" how BoP works because I use punish/reward. While I'm anticipating that folks here, not you specifically, will be upset about BoP given the result and using a commonly used idiom to talk about it.

Let me drop this one further:
Toyota's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.259 during FP3) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.908).
Porsche's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.475 during FP2) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.512).

Ferrari was 1s faster between FP3 and Hyperpole so it's not a matter of the track getting slower.

FP3 times
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Result ... ce%203.PDF
FP2 times
http://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com/Result ... ce%202.PDF

So maybe I'm going to open door B now... Toyota and Porsche are deliberately playing with their performance to guarantee they win Lemans hands down. Being 1.5s away in a single lap has nothing to do with 15kg ballast.

[AR3-GP]

Let me drop this one further:
Toyota's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.259 during FP3) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.908).
Porsche's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.475 during FP2) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.512).

Track temperature. Porsche completed their qualifying simulation during FP2 and only ran used tires during FP3.

“We saw the quali sim from the others this morning which were quite a lot faster than us yesterday, but we thought we would have been a bit closer to everyone in qualifying in the race,” he said. - Estre

Toyota did qualy sim on new tires in FP3. FP2 track temperature peak was 34 *C. FP3 track temperature peak was 24* C. Qualifying track temperature minimum was 37*C. The track was slower during the 1st qualifying session than during any free practice session. A cooler track has more grip and denser air. That's why they were faster. They didn't have pace to unload against the decline in track conditions like Ferrari did because they already showed their hand during free practice with real qualy sims, unlike Ferrari. The teams that know they are slow don't care about hiding their pace so they don't. What is to hide when you are slow? The teams that know they are fast are the ones who hide in free practice. The weather reports are tabulated in the timing website and the relevant sessions are posted below:

FP2


FP3


Qualifying

Ferrari was 1s faster between FP3 and Hyperpole so it's not a matter of the track getting slower.

Because they didn't feel a need to show their speed in FP2 or FP3.

So maybe I'm going to open door B now... Toyota and Porsche are deliberately playing with their performance to guarantee they win Lemans hands down. Being 1.5s away in a single lap has nothing to do with 15kg ballast.

Porsche is 18kg heavier this year compared to last year at Spa, and with less power. Toyota has 35kw less than last year in addition to the +5kg adjustment. Ferrari had a smallest BOP "punishment" out of the 3 manufacturers, compared to last year's race. This stuff is really simple and I'm not trying to be "aggressive" by saying that. It is just what happened. Ferrari was already arguably the fastest here last year and had their pole stripped away for technical infringement. Porsche and Toyota were then basically given more weight and less power compared to Ferrari in the year over year BOP at this track. That's why they are further behind now than last year.

Le Mans BOP does not depend on the 3 previous races, like I said in the previous post. There is no value of sandbagging.

[dialtone]

Let me drop this one further:
Toyota's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.259 during FP3) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.908).
Porsche's best Free Practice lap time (2:01.475 during FP2) was faster than its best Qualifying lap time (2:01.512).

Track temperature. Porsche completed their qualifying simulation during FP2 and only ran used tires during FP3.

Everyone improved but those 2 teams, and yet it's BoP's fault. LMAO