Toyota pushing to regain lost ground on Audi and Porsche

Toyota Gazoo are evaluated several new package solutions for its 2016 LMP1 challenger in attempt to regain the lost ground with its current TS 040 HYBRID.

You show Audi and Porsche you can beat them consistently, then you expect a backlash

Toyota Motorsport VP Rob Leupen

This was the view put forward by Rob Leupen, Vice President of Toyota Motorsport GmbH when Motorsport.com spoke with him today.

“What we see now is not a surprise really that our opposition have made a big jump after last season when we clearly had the best package,” said Leupen. “We have taken some seconds of our pace but the others have gone further compared to what they had last year.

"When you become World Champion as we did last year and you show Audi and Porsche you can beat them consistently, then you expect a backlash and for them to come back at you very strongly. This is what we have seen so far in 2015. What will we do now? We will react.”

Looking towards 2016

Leupen also gave insight in to Toyota’s strategy in getting back on level terms with Audi and Porsche next season, saying: “We realised after Spa that we could not compete in qualifying and we know the races won’t be easy for us either. We have changed our aims and we have a bigger focus now on what we will have as a package for next year.”

Toyota Gazoo Racing are strongly rumoured to be looking at a turbo engine for next season and work has been underway for a number of months on the ’16 LMP1 design.

“We are pulling all our resources together right now and these recent weeks we have been working through the wind tunnel and fine tuning the model in there,” confirmed Leupen. “Everything is on scheduled to test on track in January 2016. This is what we are working to.”