Toyota teases radical new look for Le Mans prototype

The Japanese manufacturer teased the update to its FIA World Endurance Championship machine with a series of images on social media.

Although not revealing the full look of the car, major changes teased include the headlights and taillights.

The Hypercar platform for the FIA World Endurance Championship was introduced in 2021, which superseded the costly LMP1 regulations.

The advent of Hypercar (LMH) and its sister Le Mans Daytona h (LMDh) regulations brought with it an influx of manufacturers thanks to cost-saving measures.

When the new Hypercar regulations were brought in, manufacturers were allowed to make five updates to their cars during the homologation cycle from 2023 to 2027.

When that homologation period was extended, the FIA introduced two jokers from 2028 to 2029 of one per year. Only one styling evolution is allowed from 2023 to 2029.

Toyota has made minor adjustments to its car since debuting in 2021, although none aesthetically.

The styling cues of the updated car appear to take inspiration from its road-going Prius, Crown, and Camry, which all feature a similar headlight setup.

Toyota is set to test the updated GR010 Hybrid at Paul Ricard on October 8-9 before its re-homologation.

Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice chairman and ex-Formula 1 driver Kazuki Nakajima flagged the planned update ahead of the 6 Hours of Fuji.

“We are working to introduce an update for next year,” Nakajima said.

“In early October, we will test the car with this new aero package for the first time.

“As a team, we are working together as one and proceeding with our preparations with the absolute intention of winning at Le Mans next year.

“To be honest, we have been thinking about doing an update since last year, and we even considered introducing it for this year, but partly due to the timing of the homologation wind tunnel changing [to Windshear], we decided to delay it for a year.

“We went into this year with no changes on the hardware side, but after the events of Le Mans this year, we’ve found a way to take things another step further.”

Toyota isn’t the only manufacturer set to make changes. BMW has tested a new-look M Hybrid in recent weeks and Alpine is also poised to update its A424 racer.