Toyota’s Hybrid Activation Threshold Increased for Sebring

The speed at which the Toyota GR010 Hybrid can deploy its hybrid power has been raised to 190 km/h for the first race of the 2022 FIA World Endurance Championship season.

According to the Balance of Performance table for the 1000 Miles of Sebring, the two Toyotas will need to operate solely on their 3.5-liter internal combustion engines until reaching 190 km/h in both dry and wet conditions, when the front-mounted electric motor can kick in.

The increase comes after the WEC shifted the hybrid activation threshold from the LMH technical regulations, where the number was fixed, into the BoP where the number can be adjusted by the championship’s technical team.

Last season the regulations allowed the Toyotas to use hybrid power from 120 km/h in dry conditions and between 140 to 160 km/h in wet conditions.

The title-winning Toyota GR010 Hybrids are also 30 kg heavier than they were for the final round of the 2021 campaign at Bahrain International Circuit.

Their new minimum weight of 1070 kg compares with 1030 kg for the Glickenhaus 007 Pipo and 952 kg for the grandfathered Alpine A480 Gibson LMP1 car.

Alpine has gained 22 kg since Bahrain, while Glickenhaus has remained at the same minimum allowed weight for LMH cars since its most recent WEC appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans last August.

The maximum allowed power output for the Toyotas has been set at 506 kW, some 14 kW and almost 19 horsepower less than what they had for the Bahrain event.

Glickenhaus can use the full 520 kW allowance while the Alpine is capped at 430 kW.

The maximum allowed energy figures over the course of a stint are 898 megajoules for Toyota, 910 MJ for Glickenhaus and 797 MJ for Alpine.

A separate BoP table has also been issued for the GTE classes, headlined by the return of the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R to the WEC grid ahead of a full-time Pro campaign.

Both the Corvette and the Ferrari 488 GTE Evos will start on a minimum weight of 1255 kg in GTE-Pro, while the Porsche 911 RSR-19 is slightly heavier at 1264 kg.

The GTE-Am cars from Ferrari and Porsche will be 10 kg heavier than their GTE-Pro counterparts as usual, with the Aston Martin Vantage GTEs running at 1237 kg.

Success ballast will start to be applied to individual GTE-Am cars after the Sebring race.