With the WEC's new calendar of monthly races, November brought us the 4 Hours of Shanghai. I'm starting to like this winter oriented schedule, as there's no significant off-season from motorsport world championships now, and the normal lull over the coldest months (in the Northern Hemisphere!) is filled by the warmer hope looking forward to next years big one, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Toyota came into this event with a heavily handicapped TS050 after the success penalties given to it due to comfortably winning both previous rounds. This resulted in an impact on how the Hybrid machinery generates lap time on limited fuel. Because they had less electrical energy to utilise, I presume they had two ways to look at the handicap: having to spend more time on throttle per lap, using up precious limited amount of fuel they have at their disposal. The effectiveness therefore of their petrol engine made worse than before thanks to leaner/lower power mode. Option 2, with similar engine power as before to help pass traffic, then they must have been lifting and coasting further distances before corner entry. Obviously, a mixture of the two is possible and expected, especially considering the lap time modelling and simulator work Toyota Gazoo Racing has the budget for!

LMP1 Handicap for Shanghai





The potential of extra lifting and coasting requirement puts more emphasis on drag reduction, so the car can maintain a higher speed without the propulsion force. Compared to the first two rounds, Toyota removed a dive plane on both cars, but also interestingly used a dive plane (small flat panel extending from the front of the bumper underneath the headlamps to generate front downforce to balance the rear wing) I haven’t seen before on the High Downforce body, only on the 7…









The 8 had the conventional more aggressive high downforce kit part, with more curvature in the z axis (upward), a fence on the outer edge to help seal the upper and lower surfaces (and generate some downforce) and a large cut-out to generate a predictable vortex.

Conventional lower dive plane for the TS050 High Downforce Kit



The 7 had a much simpler design, extending forward from the bodywork less distance, less curvature in z and no outer fence or cut-out - just a relatively simple piece of carbon.













Now the difference of setup between the two cars kicks off several questions as to why they decided to go this way? The effects would be small, but would influence the balance of the car, maybe to the preference of the driver crews on board. The cars were equally held back by handicap, so maybe the team wanted to split the setups to gather more data of the car when heavily handicapped whilst being able to compare the two together equally, considering an assumption knew they weren’t going to win.









Rebellion and Ginetta had no noticeable changes in design for Shanghai, despite Ginetta’s significant brake cooling issues previously. Considering the Rebellions were covering their brake duct inlets, Ginetta must have ended up being safer than the last outing at Fuji!









Below shows the performances in LMP1 at Shanghai. Rebellion were by far the best on consistent pace despite not having the best outright one lap/peak pace – they were able to be relatively close to their best lap across the race.





Ginetta’s results show how they are not quite getting the most of their performance potential; their fastest laps are miles ahead of the Toyota Hybrids, but drop off considerably to be closely matched to the Japanese team. Partly this is due to the Ginettas getting a clean start full of traffic-free laps, a luxury the others in the class did not have! If Ginetta can get their repeatable pace closer to their theoretical best laps, then I can see them getting at least a podium in Bahrain. The length of the race being 8h makes it tough for them, however.





LMP1 Success Handicap after Shanghai

So now the results from Shanghai are in, we can predict the penalties applied to each LMP1 entry.

LMP1 Success Ballast for 8H of Bahrain



The method is carried over from before, multiplying out 0.012 s/km per point gap to the foot of the class. If the gap is over 40 points it is capped to that value. Toyota have already reached this cap, so will not be slowed further than their current level of handicap. Rebellion will lose a second theoretically compared to Shanghai to fall nicely in the rest of the class in the LMP1 plot! The #5 Ginetta will be slowed theoretically only 2 thousandths compared to Shanghai, leaving all the class within a very tight window of repeatable/consistent lap times!





Bahrain should show the class evened out finally with penalties having done their job. I predict Ginetta to lock out the front row, and Rebellion to edge out the Toyotas to 3 rd thanks to the several high-speed zones on this track. If this pans out, the Ginettas will streak to an early lead in clean air, but the class will bunch up when they reach the GTEs. All will shake out after the first pit stops – Rebellion and Toyota are clearly the better teams in the pit lane.







At the end of the day, I expect the cameras to be on LMP1 for a long time at the next race, proving some of the doubters wrong with what’s on track.

GTE Pro Balance of Performance (BoP)

The previous rounds had Ferrari at the top just ahead of Aston and then Porsche, so how did the BoP shape out at Shanghai?





Below is a plot showing the top laps from Shanghai. Porsche for the first time this season had the best peak pace thanks to clean air on pole. Aston were very competitive however across the race and would have won if it didn’t have a tyre failure from the lead. The 51 Ferrari did well and was consistent considering the slower peak pace but was ultimately disqualified for failing the minimum ride height test post-race.









Porsche would then inherit the race win, again without having the fastest car when considering a stint length. This cements them to be front-runners for the championship, as they have won when they are at a slight disadvantage.





I have been impressed so far with how competitive the BoP has been for this class, considering the previous season having BMW and Aston Martin far behind at some races.

LMP2 Tyre War

In LMP2 the battle between the tyre suppliers was raging, and super competitive! Goodyear now have significant race mileage under their belts, and the teams are getting closer to the front of the class with them. By plotting the top lap times one can see how the teams get the most of their rubber over the duration of their use with the top drivers.









On peak pace both Jota run Orecas had one good lap each showing what these can do in a clean lap, but after that throughout this plot Racing Team Nederland were the better team running Michelins. Closely following them were the Oreca Michelin combination of United Autosports and both Jota run cars with Goodyear Orecas. Unfortunately, Cool Racing had significant trouble with their Oreca and couldn’t be a part of the fight unlike other rounds – without them however the front of the field was super tight!





Kenta Yamashita wasn’t too far off with the High Class Racing Oreca on Goodyears too, alongside the Signatech Alpine (Oreca) Michelin. Cetilar and their Dallara on Michelins were consistently a second off the pace getting used to WEC racing.

LMP2 Am Performances

Now let’s have a look at the mandated Silver (or Bronze) rated drivers and how they performed:









Again, Antonin Borga was super strong with his laps, having a limited amount of time in the car due to the reliability. Phil Hanson and Gabriel Aubry both did well again, followed by Roberto Gonzalez and Anders Fjordbach. Note how the Ams with the Goodyears are now more competitive; I expected the likes of Gonzalez to carry on from good performances last season, however the time taken to get up to speed illustrates the impact of changing team and tyre supplier.





Ragues is still finding his feet in WEC, which is surprising considering his strong performances with Duqueine in ELMS last year, I expect his performance to improve over the season considering he’s with a top team.

Roberto Lacorte was again the best Bronze at Shanghai (Coigny did not set a time) ahead of the closely matched pair of Mark Patterson and Frits van Eerd.

LMP2 Driver Ratings for 2020

I was surprised by some of the driver ratings for 2020 that were announced recently, and how they affect LMP2 Amateur drivers in WEC. I expected Antonin Borga, Gabriel Aubry and Phil Hanson to be up-rated to Gold, however only Aubry got the bump. Remember Job van Uitert (who’s raised to Gold) was closely matched with Borga and Aubry at Silverstone. I wonder if it was down to the longevity of Aubry in WEC, as Borga and Hanson are in their first seasons at the top series. It will be a question of when, not if for both drives becoming Gold, and another calendar year as Silver allows them to play at the top of LMP2.

GTE Am Performances

In GTE AM all teams require at least one Bronze and at least one Silver (or below). This will look at both rating required drivers per car as before.





In the Bronze field, both Aston Martin drivers Salih Yoluc and Paul Dalla Lana had fantastic performances. Edigio Perfetti had great pace at the start on a clean track without Prototypes around and removing these top 10 best laps was around third in class. Ben Keating was very consistent in the sister Porsche dropping little time across the plot.





th place finish. Considering AF Corse had a win and a second place from rounds one and 2, Perrodo’s Ferrari had some success ballast added, so his performance at Shanghai was good enough to keep their championship hopes ticking over with a 4place finish.









Regarding driver ratings, no drivers here changed ratings. I expect Salih Yoluc was in the spotlight as he has been impressive in Pro-Am Aston Martins in both GTE and GT3 racing around the globe.





For the Silver drivers, it was again the young Ross Gunn in the Aston Martin #98 able to set great times and consistency. Louis Prette set the fastest lap but his pace dropped off considerably.





Kei Cozzolino also was one of the best. His lap times were consistent across his drive time.





Larry ten Voorde was impressive stepping into the 911 RSR alongside Will Bamber in another 911. Charlie Eastwood and Nicklas Nielsen did well considering they both have the cars with the most ballast.





David Heinemeier Hannson is improving but is still far behind in GTE compared to his performances at the front of LMP2 last season.





GTE Am Driver Rankings for 2020

To be expected, Charlie Eastwood and Kei Cozzolino moved up to Gold rated. Felipe Fraga that impressed at other rounds was also moved up to Gold; he couldn’t race due to other racing commitments.

In Summary...

Looking towards the 8h of Bahrain, with the information presented above, I expect more big headlines from qualifying (another Privateer Pole, this time from Ginetta) and a tight fight for a large portion of the race in LMP1 and GTE Pro.

Which of Goodyear and Michelin will make the most of the changing ambient conditions over the long race?

Can anyone else beat TF Sport/#83 AF Corse in GTE AM?

At the moment I am enjoying the monthly WEC instalments thanks to the new calendar, so we don’t have long to wait until the last one of 2019!



