Words and Photos by Gavin Oliva
To begin with, Rebellion Racing took their first-ever pole position with a time of 1:45.892 set by Senna, which will have them starting out front for race day tomorrow. Next, both Toyota's finished 5th and 6th overall. That means no Hybrid cars in the top 3 grid spots, something that hasn't happened since 1992.
So why the sudden change of the guard? What happened from just this past June in Le Mans?
Well, The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) added new handicaps for the LMP1 class for the 2019 -2020 season. To increase the level of competitiveness, the pair of Toyota TS050 Hybrid's has to now comply with Equivalence of Technology (EoT), and an additional 36kg of weight has been added to each hybrid car. The non-hybrid LMP1 class cars Instant fuel flow for the non-hybrids raised by 43.75%.
Since the EoT became into effect, the performance gaps between the hybrids and the non-hybrids have substantially decreased as seen very well at Fuji speedway where the Toyota's could be seen running out of steam 3/4 of the way down the main straight.
These new regulations may spell disaster for the Toyota team as Shanghai has several long straights that may be better suited for the Rebellion team and the other non-hybrid LMP1 cars. One thing for sure, they’ll have their work cut out for them.
We'll all find out tomorrow at the end of the 4 hours of Shanghai!