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Toyota will compete in the Le Mans 24
Hours in 2012 with a new hybrid power sports car. Its return to the
world’s most famous endurance race will be with a new LMP1 chassis
designed, developed and produced by Toyota Motorsport in Germany,
equipped with a hybrid petrol powertrain engineered by Toyota in Japan.
Participation at Le Mans will be one of a
number of races Toyota proposes to enter in the 2012 FIA World Endurance
Championship, a competition that will enable it to further explore the
potential of its world-leading hybrid technology.
The new team will be based at Toyota
Motorsport’s Cologne headquarters and it is expected that the new car
will be rolled out early in 2012 for an extensive pre-season testing
programme. Further details about the team will be announced later.
Tadashi Yamashina, Toyota Motor
Corporation Senior Managing Officer and Toyota Motorsport Chairman,
said: “Toyota has entered Le Mans before, but by using our hybrid
technology this time will be a completely new challenge. We want to
write a new chapter in the history of the Le Mans 24 Hours, as in the
FIA World Endurance Championship, through our use of hybrid technology.
“In addition, we aim to learn from the
experience of competing in such a challenging motorsport environment to
enhance our production car technology. Le Mans is a legendary race and I
would like to thank the ACO and the FIA for their constructive and
positive co-operation over the last few months.
Toyota Motosport’s award-winning
engineering services and all its current motorsport projects are
unaffected by the announcement of the new racing programme and will
continue as before. Toyota hopes the new enterprise will provide further
impetus to Toyota Motorsport’s successful business development.
Toyota last competed in the Le Mans 24
Hours as a manufacturer in the late 1990s racing the GT-One, a car which
famously established a new race lap record in 1999. |
