The FIA issued a bulletin during this morning’s third practice session at Fuji, announcing further Equivalence of Technology changes to the LMP1 class, ahead of tomorrow’s 6 Hours of Fuji to reduce the performance gap futher between the hybrid and non-hybrid prototypes.
However, there’s still major discontent in the LMP1 non-hybrid ranks despite the change. Multiple team sources have expressed to DSC that even with the changes made this morning, that they are still having to ask their drivers to lift and coast each lap to ensure they are within the fuel perameters per lap and stint, meaning they are still unable to extract the maximum current performance potential of their cars.
The changes see the maximum fuel allocation per stint and max petrol energy per lap increased for the LMP1 non-hybrid teams.
Rebellion Racing and DragonSpeed, which race with normally aspirated Gibson engines will run with 55.5kg of petrol per stint, and 75.2 MJ per lap. Before, the teams ran with 54.4 kg of petrol per stint and 73.7 MJ per lap.
The turbocharged LMP1s, from ByKolles (NISMO) and SMP Racing (AER) will run with 50.3kg per stint and 69.7 per lap. This is a change from 49.3 kg of fuel per stint and 68.3 MJ per lap.
The changes were made with data collected from the three practice sessions so far this weekend, which all saw Toyota Gazoo Racing’s TS050 HYBRIDs finish 1-2, with times considerably faster than the privateers.
No changes have been made to the Toyota TS050 HYBRID’s EoT perameters in this change.
The amendment to the EoT cannot be appealed.
This comes after the FIA had already announced EoT changes between Silverstone and Fuji.
