Ferrari wins on its factory prototype comeback. And narrowly so at the end of an intriguing and sometimes thrilling battle with Toyota. All five major car manufacturers involved in Hypercar lead at some point or other. The centenary edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours definitely got a race befitting of such a significant moment in its history. There can be no question of that.
There is, however, another question that needs to be asked. Was it contrived, a result of the Balance of Performance changes made outside of the rules and regulations in the lead-up to the blue riband round of the World Endurance Championship?
The advantage Toyota’s GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar enjoyed over the opening three rounds of this year’s WEC was mitigated by the BoP revision that came exactly two weeks ago, and just three days before the pre-event Le Mans Test Day. The 37kg increase it received was a massive hit, though in terms of the GR010’s battle for supremacy with the Ferrari 499P LMH it was really 13kg. That’s the difference between the extra 37kg the Toyota was handed and the 24kg the Ferrari received.
It undoubtedly changed the dynamic of the race. Of course it did, because that was what the BoP changes were designed to do. With the eyes of the world focused on Le Mans, race organiser the Automobile Club de l’Ouest couldn’t afford for the race to be another Toyota walkover, a damp squib of an affair in which the result was never truly in doubt.
That’s why, together with the co-organiser of the WEC, the FIA, the ACO overrode the new BoP system introduced for this season. A system that didn’t allow for wholesale changes ahead of Le Mans. Only a tweak in the balance between LMH machinery and the LMDhs from Cadillac and Porsches was permitted from the start of the season right up until after Le Mans, though exactly when that was possible wasn’t entirely clear.
It was a unilateral decision imposed upon the manufacturers from the very top of the ACO. Club president Pierre Fillon, I believe, was the architect of the move, along with his opposite number on the FIA Endurance Commission, Richard Mille.
It was billed by the two organisations as a “correction” because the performance differential between the different LMH cars had been “greater than initially anticipated” at the opening three races. That’s another way of saying that Toyota was too fast on the way to victories of various degrees of dominance.
Source: Autosport