The 2023 World Endurance Championship gets underway shortly with the 1000 Miles of Sebring scheduled for March 17 at Florida’s Sebring International Raceway.
This season the premier Hypercar class will have multiple new entries, including LMH race cars from Ferrari and Vanwall, as well as LMDh race cars from Cadillac and Porsche.
Incumbent teams Toyota, Peugeot, and Glickenhaus will also be present with their respective LMH race cars. Toyota was the dominant team last season, with drivers Brendon Hartley, Ryō Hirakawa, and Sébastien Buemi taking home the Drivers’ title, and Toyota taking home the Manufacturers’ title.
Despite the success, Toyota has revised its GR010 Hybrid LMH for the new season—a season in which Toyota will chase its sixth overall victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The automaker said the focus has been on optimizing the car’s reliability and efficiency.
2023 Toyota GR010 Hybrid LMH race car
On the outside, the 2023-spec car is differentiated from its predecessors via new dive planes on the front corners and smaller end plates for the rear wing. There have also been some modifications to the bodywork to help improve brake cooling, including new vents that can be changed during a race. The internals of the headlights have also been tweaked to improve visibility at night.
The GR010 Hybrid’s chassis has also undergone a weight-saving program to get overall weight down to the new minimum of 1,040 kilograms (approximately 2,293 pounds).
Toyota said some adjustments were also made to the powertrain to reduce weight and improve reliability. The setup consists of a twin-turbo 3.5-liter V-6 powering the rear wheels and a single motor-generator powering the front pair. The V-6 delivers up to 697 hp and the electric motor up to 268 hp, though in line with the regulations the two power units can only deliver a maximum combined output of 670 hp at any time.
Driving for Toyota this season will be Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and José María López in the number 7 car and Buemi, Hartley, and Hirakawa in the number 8 car.
