The World Endurance Championship for 2023 is about to kick off! On March 17th, the 1000 Miles of Sebring Race will be held at the Sebring International Raceway in Florida. There are lots of new cars in the competition this year – like Ferraris, Cadillacs and Porsches; and they are all from either the Hypercar Class or LMDh Class.
Three teams (Toyota, Peugeot, and Glickenhaus) will be at the race with their special LMH cars. Toyota had a really good year last season, meaning that their drivers Brendon Hartley, Ryō Hirakawa and Sébastien Buemi got the trophy for Drivers’ title, while Toyota grabbed the award for Manufacturers’ title.
Even though Toyota have achieved a lot of success, they have tweaked their GR010 Hybrid LMH car for the next season. This time round, Toyota are aiming to win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the 6th times! To get this done, they’ve worked hard to make sure that the car is running perfectly and efficiently.
The 2023-spec car looks different from older cars. It has added ‘dive planes’ on the front side, and smaller ‘end plates’ for its rear wing. The bodywork also had some changes to make it better at cooling brakes, with new adjustable openings in the headlights so you can see better at night-time.
The GR010 Hybrid car has had some of its weight taken away so that it will weigh a minimum of 1,040 kilograms (That’s about 2,293 pounds!).
Toyota changed some things about their engine in order to make it lighter and more reliable. The engine is made up of two parts. One is a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6, which powers the back wheels of the car. The other part is one electric motor/generator that powers the front pair of wheels. Both parts combined provide up to 670 horsepower at any given time, with the V-6 itself providing 697 and the electric motor 268 horsepower.
Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López will be racing for Toyota in car #7, while car #8 will have Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa taking the wheel.