Toyota Positive on Success Handicap; Other Brands Opposed

Toyota has expressed support for the possibility of success handicaps being introduced to the FIA World Endurance Championship next year, a move that several of the Japanese marque’s Hypercar rivals have stated they are opposed to.

A provision for success handicaps to be added on top of the current Balance of Performance system at regular WEC rounds excluding the 24 Hours of Le Mans was laid out in the draft 2026 sporting regulations published last month.

However, a statement issued by the FIA and ACO shortly after stressed that no final decision has been taken on whether handicaps will be implemented or not.

Against that backdrop, Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice-chairman Nakajima told selected media including Sportscar365 during this month’s Bahrain  season finale that the marque believes SUPER GT’s experience shows the system could work.

In SUPER GT, extra weight and reduced power via the use of fuel flow restrictors are assigned to cars based on the number of points scored, generally ensuring no one team can dominate and that the title race stays open until the end.

“It depends how they operate it, and how much weight they place on BoP and the handicaps,” said Nakajima. “If the balance is right, I think it’s not a bad idea to have both. 

“It’s a nice system because it gives wider chances to win races, but it means the best-performing car still has the highest chance of winning the championship. What is going on in SUPER GT is a good balance between the sporting aspects and the show.

“I think it’s interesting to have an additional layer [on top of BoP] to close the gaps between manufacturers but still maintain a degree of meritocracy. It doesn’t create too much of a ‘shuffle’ between the manufacturers, which we saw this year.”

Nakajima added he feels the WEC would need to mirror the SUPER GT approach of halving and then completely removing handicaps for the penultimate and final races respectively in order to avoid providing teams with perverse incentives.

“This is an important part, and this is part of my question of how they want to operate it,” he said. “But what they do currently in SUPER GT is a good system.”

On the other hand, other manufacturer representatives polled in Bahrain generally expressed a negative view of the idea of imposing success handicaps, instead stating a preference for the current BoP system to be maintained and refined.

Ferrari’s global head of endurance Antonello Coletta said the Italian brand accepts it has stronger and weaker tracks and that big swings in performance are to be expected under the current system of BoP manufacturer compensation.

“It’s clear that for us, in terms of the total season, we have more difficult tracks, Interlagos and Fuji,” said Coletta. “Both races are positioned in the calendar after the best tracks for us, and it’s normal that, with the mechanism of the rules, we have more problems at these circuits than at the first circuits of the season.

“There are eight races and there exists more or less a compensation. I prefer to maintain the compensation in these races and not think about the past – the past is the past, and we need to maintain our head in the present and, I hope, in a good future.”

Peugeot Sport’s then-technical director Olivier Jansonnie, who has since been promoted to parent company Stellantis Motorsport’s head of motorsport, said the French brand “is not convinced at all” when asked for his opinion on handicaps in Bahrain.

“Within the whole discussion we need to have now about how we balance the cars, we think it’s very tiny details [that need changing],” said Jansonnie.

“Our opinion is that the car should be balanced by the performance that is displayed on track and not by the sporting results.

“We appreciate that there are different opinions and we might need to find some compromises, but our own opinion is that it is much more relevant to balance the cars based on the performance on-track, than balancing on the sporting results.”

Alpine vice-president of motorsport Bruno Famin meanwhile described the current system as “80-85 percent good” and cautioned the rulemakers not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” with the introduction of success handicaps.

“I think it’s quite easy to improve,” Famin told Sportscar365. “We know what went wrong earlier in the season. But the result is not so bad. I think maybe if we have a couple of weird results we know why and it’s easy to correct.

“My understanding is that success handicap has been put in the regulations just in case. I understand the wish is not to use it and I think it would be better not to use it because it would be another layer of complexity.”

Although Porsche will no longer have a works presence in the WEC next year, the German marque’s LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle offered a positive view on success handicaps when asked for his thoughts on the system.

“Anything that helps to helps to make a level playing field we are in favor of, definitely,” said Kuratle. “We should not lose any possibility to discuss or find solutions.

“I’m not saying this is the one and only and that will cure all the problems. It’s one thing we have to discuss.”

John Dagys contributed to this report