Who has the upper hand in the Hypercar battle at Le Mans?

Even after six hours of track time at the Le Mans Test Day, the only thing for certain in the Hypercar class is that it’s too early to predict how the battle for the overall victory at Le Mans will pan out this weekend.

Heading into June, Toyota looked to be the firm favorite, on pace, reliability and operations after three convincing wins to start the season at Sebring, Portimao and Spa. But there has been a slight shift in the paddock’s mood since the teams arrived at the Circuit de la Sarthe for the centenary event.

The main reason to suspect that the battle for the overall victory won’t be as clear cut is the surprise Balance of Performance change for the 24 Hours that was revealed last week. After stating that the Balance of Performance for individual cars was locked in between Portimao and Monza, the ACO and FIA felt that unplanned changes were necessary for Le Mans to,“ensure a level playing field.”

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“The first few races of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship season have shown differences between different LMH-spec cars competing in the Hypercar class to be greater than initially anticipated,” said the ACO and FIA in a statement.

“Considering these factors, and following an in-depth analysis of available data, the WEC Committee has decided that the goal of ensuring a level playing field within the Hypercar class will be best achieved by implementing correction between, but also within, the LMH and the LMDh platforms.”

Thus, Toyota’s GR010 HYBRIDs will run with 37 additional kilos, Ferrari’s 499Ps have had 24 kilograms added and the Cadillacs have seen their minimum weight increase by 11 kilograms.

The question on everyone’s lips is, how much of a difference will this make?

Ask Toyota, and it will tell you that it’s a problem. Pascal Vasselon, the TGR technical director, was not best pleased with the team’s performance on Test Day, having seen its 2023-spec challenger on track at Le Mans for the first time.

During the day, the best time from the team came from the No. 7 in the afternoon, a 3m29.827s. While it wasn’t in the same ballpark as the best times achieved last year, it was still the third-fastest time of the day and just 0.3s off the pace-setting Ferrari. The usual rules of course apply; reading into times from testing is almost never advisable.

Nevertheless, Vasselon sees cause for concern at this stage.