SURPRISE LE MANS BALANCE CHANGES ANNOUNCED, HURTING TOYOTA

Despite high-profile new entries from Cadillac, Porsche, Peugeot, and Ferrari, Toyota has been in complete control of the FIA World Endurance Championship through three rounds. While the series has rules to allow balance-of-performance changes within the season when a team is that dominant, the first change was not expected to come until after the 24 Hours of Le Mans. That makes yesterday's announcement of major weight adjustments throughout the field, including major penalties for the Toyota GR010s that have won every round of the season, a surprise.

According to an official announcement from the FIA and ACO, the Toyota GR010s will race at Le Mans with an additional 82 lb of weight. While the Ferrari, Cadillac, and Porsches have also been given some added weight, the substantially heavier change for the Toyotas effectively means that all three have been given a major break against their biggest threat.

The Ferrari 499P suffers the most of the rest of the field, adding 53 lb. The Cadillac V-Series.R adds 24 lb, while the Porsche 963 has been given just 7 lb of additional weight. The Peugeot 9X8 has not been given any new ballast, nor have the two privateer entries from Vanwall and Glickenhaus.

While the changes are unexpected after the category's previous announcement that weight and power limits set in March were meant to hold through Le Mans, the category's sanctioning body apparently had the right to make this adjustment. The result, the alliance of the ACO and FIA hope, will be a more competitive 24 hour classic for every manufacturer that brought a competitive car. As the new Hypercar category was always meant to include balance of performance, the change is in line with the spirit of the rule set even if it does not match with the expectations set three months ago.

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2023-06-01T19:17:27Z dg43tfdfdgfd