Anthony Davidson, Stéphane Sarrazin and Sébastien Buemi, driving the #8 2012-specification TS030 HYBRID, drove a strong race to finish fourth.

However, the team’s updated 2013 car, in the hands of #7 crew Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima, did not finish after a competitive debut race in which it fought at the front.

Soon after half distance, the TOYOTA HYBRID System – Racing stopped recovering energy and, as a consequence, the #7 suffered overheating rear brakes.

The TS030 HYBRID combines regenerative braking with traditional hydraulic braking and both elements are needed for normal operation. Therefore the team had to retire the #7 from the race.

Earlier, Nicolas had started in fourth with Sébastien fifth, but both quickly showed their determination during an action-packed opening.

Nicolas established the #7 as a contender for victory with some exciting wheel-to-wheel racing against the Audis, while Sébastien was running well in fifth.

When the first driver changes came around, Stéphane took over from Sébastien in the #8 while Nicolas’ thrilling race ended when he handed the #7 over to Kazuki.

At half distance TOYOTA Racing was looking set for a good result, fighting closely with the Audis as different tyre and fuel strategies played out.

Anthony took the wheel of the #8 but soon after Kazuki pulled into the pits to retire the #7. That meant Alex did not take part in the race.

The #8 kept up the challenge for a podium and Sébastien took on the fight. A late incident with a slower car caused damage which hindered performance but he brought the 2012 car home to the chequered flag in its final race.

The next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship is the Le Mans 24 Hours on 22-23 June, while the traditional test day at La Sarthe takes place on 9 June.

TS030 HYBRID #7 (Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre, Kazuki Nakajima)

Race: Did not finish. Fastest lap: 2min 1.847secs

Nicolas Lapierre: “We are very disappointed by the final result because we were fighting for the win. Even if we are a little bit slower than them, I think it would have been close. The positive thing from today is the pace of the car, which was better than in qualifying. Considering we were using the Le Mans package, we are back in the game. Now we need to work and understand what happened so we are ready to fight in Le Mans.”

Kazuki Nakajima: “I think our race performance was more competitive than we imagined after qualifying. Until the problem things looked pretty good and we were fighting with the Audis. I had a good first stint but the second stint was a little difficult due to the traffic. As a preparation for Le Mans it’s better that this issue happened today rather than in the 24 Hours. I hope we can find the reason for that and avoid a repeat. Now we focus on Le Mans.”

TS030 HYBRID #8 (Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Stéphane Sarrazin)

Race: 4th, 167 laps (+1 lap), 7 pit stops. Fastest lap: 2min 2.052secs

Anthony Davidson: “It was pretty much what we expected considering we had the 2012 car. For my stint the car felt really good and the balance was nice; the grip was coming to us. We did the best possible job we could this weekend. It’s a shame we lost car #7. I didn’t know the car was out when I did my stint and I was surprised to see it in the garage when Sébastien took the wheel. That is probably the biggest disappointment of the day.”

Sébastien Buemi: “We were pushing really hard and we had a chance to be on the podium, even though the 2012 car in high-downforce spec is not ideal for Spa. Then I was pushed on to the grass and against the barrier when I was lapping a slower car. It caused quite a lot of damage, which affected the car’s performance and prevented me pushing to the maximum in the last stint.”

Stéphane Sarrazin: “The race was quite difficult for us. We were behind the Audis and a bit slower. We can explain that by the fact we have the 2012 car with high-downforce package and here, this is a bit too much downforce. We did our best and the team did a great job. We are fourth but it was a tight fight to be on the podium and we just missed it. It’s unfortunate for car #7 but the team will learn from that and be stronger at Le Mans.”

Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Team President: “We were in a real fight at the front with the #7 car and it was an exciting battle. So it was a disappointment to retire. We are still investigating exactly what caused the problem and it is a priority to address the root cause. The #8 crew did well to fight for the podium with the 2012-specification car but overall we expected more from this race than fourth. We will put all our energy into achieving better at Le Mans. Audi did a great job today, so congratulations to them. Their drivers fought fairly and it was a good show. In fact, the event overall has been impressive, with a big crowd and nice atmosphere showing the best of WEC.”

The team gave a competitive debut to its updated TS030 HYBRID, with the #7 crew of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima being the first to try the 2013 car, in low-downforce Le Mans specification at a race weekend.

The #8 line-up of Anthony Davidson, Stéphane Sarrazin and Sébastien Buemi continued with the 2012 car, in high-downforce specification, following their third place at Silverstone in the first race of the season.

With neither car in optimum downforce configuration for the specific requirements of the unique Spa circuit, the #7 qualified fourth in the hands of Alex and Kazuki. The #8 was fifth, with Stéphane and Anthony having qualified.

A busy day of track action got underway in the morning with a pair of two-hour practice sessions. Despite a wet track early in morning practice, both cars completed the sessions without major issues.

The 30-minute qualifying session saw two drivers from each car set a minimum of two flying laps each. The grid is decided by the combined average of each driver’s fastest two laps.

As the sun began to set, the conditions remained dry although an early red flag due to an accident delayed proceedings. All four drivers performed consistently but the chequered flag flew with both cars narrowly missing out on the top three.

Tomorrow sees a 20-minute warm-up session at 9.00 followed by the race itself, with the green flag at 14.30.

Pascal Vasselon, Technical Director: “The cars are not in the same configuration and it’s true the Le Mans car is lacking downforce here but we are disappointed by our performance today. We haven’t extracted the maximum performance from the car. The schedule is very tight and we haven’t had a lot of time to analyse but the fact is that we would have expected to do a bit better. Fortunately we have a warm-up tomorrow morning to try some different settings because we need to find lap time, particularly in sector two.”

TS030 HYBRID #7 (Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre, Kazuki Nakajima)

Free practice 1: 4th (2min 2.856secs), 37 laps

Free practice 2: 5th (2min 2.332secs), 49 laps

Qualifying: 4th (2min 0.947secs average)

Alex Wurz: “Our qualifying was not perfect but from Kazuki and myself there weren’t any real mistakes. It averages out over four timed laps so the result reflects pretty well the respective performance levels at this track today. Inside the car, which is in Le Mans spec, I feel that the downforce level we have is a compromise. It’s not the result we wanted but we will do our best tomorrow and fight for a decent result.”

Nicolas Lapierre: “It was a tough day for us. It was the first time for our car on this track and we struggled to get the right set-up. It’s interesting to compare the two cars and we have some interesting data. But this isn’t the result we were looking for so it could be a tough race. We will work on some things in the warm-up and try to find the right balance. It is a long race and we will do our best to finish in a strong position; we have not given up on the weekend.”

Kazuki Nakajima: “It was a difficult session; we did everything we could but Audi was quick. From the morning practice on we’ve been looking for better car balance and more grip. We have tried some different set-ups and qualifying was better but we did not completely solve the problem; we still have work to do. We need to keep our heads up and keep fighting for a good result in the race.”

TS030 HYBRID #8 (Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi, Stéphane Sarrazin)

Free practice 1: 6th (2min 3.143secs), 40 laps

Free practice 2: 6th (2min 2.524secs), 44 laps

Qualifying: 5th (2min 1.203secs average)

Anthony Davidson: “You always feel disappointed to be fifth when you’re used to fighting for pole but tomorrow is another day. It’s going to be a challenge to manage the tyres and the traffic is not easy here as well so it will be a tough race. We have to be clever in traffic and keep it clean for the first half of the race; that might put us in a good position at the end.”

Sébastien Buemi: “We knew it would be difficult for the #8 car as we do not have the 2013-spec car. So it’s disappointing to be fifth but not entirely unexpected. The race will be long and anything can happen but at the moment we seem to be a little bit behind. We need to stay focused and get the maximum out of the #8 in the race; we know the car very well and will try hard to improve our position.”

Stéphane Sarrazin: “I only had a couple of flying laps at the beginning of the qualifying due to the red flag, which disrupted things a bit. We knew it could be a challenge with the 2012 car, against new cars from Audi and our own 2013-specification TS030 HYBRID. We pushed to the maximum but the high-downforce configuration is not ideal for Spa. We’ll keep pushing tomorrow.”

“Spa is very special because it’s one of the remaining race tracks where the track is built into the nature and not nature around the track. It’s a lot of up and down through the forest and it is quite a long lap. You have of course very famous corners like Eau Rouge or Blanchimont, but you have also a great history of racing, good and bad. I lost one of my heroes in Spa, Stefan Bellof, who crashed in Eau Rouge. All of this makes the track special for a driver. It’s quite heroic to win a race there and that’s why I love it.

“The main corner is probably Eau Rouge; the Eau Rouge-Raidillon combination where we arrive very fast. Maybe in qualifying you can do it flat out. In the race, I think we have to do a little lift, so it always brings you to the limit, of the car and of the driver comfort. That’s why it’s so good and that’s why we like it; if you get it right you’ll carry maximum speed into Kemel Straight.

“Then you have a fast corner section down the hill, the right left of Les Combes and the 90 degree right of Malmedy. Again, that keeps the driver awake. Then, a lot of high-speed corners coming back to the pits with Stavelot, Blanchimont, the Bus Stop chicane… A very cool race track lay-out especially for sportscars and that’s why I like it.”

Unlike his team-mates in the #7 TS030 HYBRID however, Nicolas hasn’t got a background in Formula 1; his single-seater career featured race wins in GP2 and a championship in A1GP but from there his career took a different track.

Looking back at single-seaters you really seem to have clicked with endurance after a promising but unlucky single-seater career?

“I’m enjoying myself. It’s a huge pleasure to drive at this level in endurance racing and I think I fit better with the team spirit in this sort of racing, helping a team-mate and not fighting them is more part of my nature.

“It’s good too to surprise people that maybe haven’t heard of me before and are surprised that I am driving at this level for a big manufacturer team like TOYOTA where, more normally they would expect to see drivers from F1.

“The TOYOTA programme is a great opportunity for me, I’ve been racing in sportscars since 2008 and I’m still enjoying it.”

You have developed a great reputation for being one of the fastest men out there, do you ever allow yourself to compare your pace against your ex-F1 rivals and team-mates?

“F1 was, of course, part of the plan for many years, particularly when I got to GP2.  At that point I wasn’t looking at sportscars at all but then in my last year in GP2, 2007, I went to Le Mans in a GT car.

“I’d never been to Le Mans before and thought it was super cool. I liked the spirit, the atmosphere and the track. I had the possibility of another season in GP2 and then Hugues de Chaunac was in touch asking if I would like to be involved in Oreca’s new LMP1 project with a long-term contract.

“I thought about it and came to the decision that it was time to do something different. I had my chances in single-seaters and it hadn’t really gone my way for a variety of reasons, particularly after a crash at Monaco when I should have been going for the championship but ended up breaking two of my vertebrae. The following year I was there with DAMS and we were very competitive, winning two races but we suffered too many reliability issues to keep up a title fight.

“I made the decision and many people were surprised; I was only 25 when I moved over. I took it step by step and learned a lot from my different team-mates, particularly Stephane Ortelli and Olivier Panis. I learned as much as I could and I made my way.

“When TOYOTA came they asked me if I wanted to join. I already had an another offer on the table but I decided it would be better to go to a project where we could all start together. As things turned out that was a good decision!

“I’m really happy here, and with my role. The team are giving me a lot of responsibility; I’m doing a lot of the development of the car and have been doing the racing since the very beginning. It’s great that we are having some success and that it allows me to give them something back for the chance they offered me.”

You’ve proved to be a trend-setter – you made a move which a lot of F1 drivers, or others who got close, have gone on to do. You started something?

“I don’t know if I started something but when I did it, for sure, nobody had really done it in that way, as a young driver leaving the chance for F1 to take a different path. I guess I was different – I was never obsessed with F1. Yes I wanted to go there but I always had an open mind that if I couldn’t find a way in then I would race somewhere else.

“I think it has proved to be a good approach, a good decision. It was good too that I made the move early enough to get experience and still be young enough to join a factory team. With some knowledge but still hungry too, for race wins, championships and, of course, Le Mans!”

Being part of a factory team must be an interesting experience – the TOYOTA Motorsport GmbH (TMG) facility at Cologne is an amazing place…

“It’s impressive, really amazing! It’s one of the strongest parts of this programme as it’s probably the best motorsport facility anywhere.

“Every time you go there there are other major teams using parts of the facility so they too recognise how good it is, and you realise how lucky you are to drive for this team.

“It has everything you need and in addition there is the amazing research and development team in Japan too who built the engine and the hybrid system.  Together we have some facilities that no other team has, really world class.”

The driving simulator at TMG looks like a useful tool. We have seen results from your test sessions and a trace from the simulator, overlaid on your actual lap around the real circuit, was almost identical!

“The technology really is that good, that accurate – we spend a lot of time calibrating it, with about a third of the time we spend there spent ensuring that we have the correct feel for the simulator, to replicate the feeling we have in the real car. The top speed, the bumps, everything is really the same.

“It has been a very interesting part of the programme for me. Before joining TOYOTA I had never been in a simulator, I was really very impressed with its capabilities.”

“I am in the simulator for perhaps 20-25 days in a year and that has been enormously helpful. A good example was Fuji last year. I had never been there before and it was strange to arrive there and find it so familiar.

“I was able to arrive and drive at almost 100% immediately, it saved time at the track, which is very expensive and its time we have very little of too.”

The simulators are stunning – but what about the cars themselves?

“The cars are very exciting, especially the hybrid system. The TS030 is a very beautiful aerodynamic form too but the hybrid system is something very new.

“I was very curious in the beginning when I sat in the car for a seat fitting.  So many cables and the super capacitor – I thought ‘how can they bring all this stuff together?’

“But then the first time I sat in the real car on track the system was already working very well without any problem from the hybrid system; very, very impressive.

“And the power!  A real kick for one and a half or two seconds. Remember too that this energy is coming only from braking, energy that otherwise normally you would waste. It is a beautiful thing; the hybrid system is something really special.”

Last year you started well and finished on the podium for the first time at Silverstone . After that it all came together and you seemed to gel particularly well with Alex Wurz…

“Alex is a two-time Le Mans winner and he’s 10 years older than me so there is no competition between us at all. In racing terms it is the perfect match.

“I really enjoyed working with him last season and even though, with just one car, we were under a lot of pressure there were really no mistakes apart from Bahrain and we got some really great results. The car was great and we only really had Le Mans as a black mark on the season.

“That wasn’t because of the car’s pace, because that was clearly there, but because we retired both cars so early, for different reasons. We always knew that it was going to be difficult but I would have liked to have done 16 or 20 hours through the night and into the morning.

“After Le Mans last year it was fantastic. We won races and of the four final races we only lost in Bahrain after a technical issue and then I crashed the car while trying to fight back.”

Which of the circuits are you looking forward to the most for the 2013 FIA WEC?

“I have to say that I am very disappointed that we are not taking the championship to Sebring. I have very happy memories there of course, the track is fantastic and the atmosphere is incredible. After Le Mans that would be my second choice.

“Aside from that I like Spa because the track is very exciting and also Fuji, we have a lot of support there and the atmosphere again is superb.”

So this year the target is to win Le Mans and fight for the WEC title, but it’s not an easy task is it?

“This year though everybody knows we are fast and have the pace to win.  Everybody is quite naturally expecting more and we need to deliver, so the pressure is on.

“Having the second car this year though is a big boost. In free practice you can try more things, compare the two cars on different settings, get more data.”

If, at the end of 2013 you had to choose between Nicolas Lapierre world champion and Nicolas Lapierre Le Mans winner, which way would you go?

“It’s Le Mans winner for sure. For so many drivers, and in particular for French drivers, Le Mans is a dream and so my personal target is Le Mans and that’s the way it will be until I actually do win it. But both would be good and if you win Le Mans you are in a strong position for the world championship too.”

After finishing third and fourth in the Six Hours of Silverstone earlier this month with the 2012-specification TS030 HYBRID, the team will bring one updated car to Belgium.

The #7 car of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima – competing for TOYOTA Racing for the first time in 2013 after missing Silverstone due to Super Formula commitments – will drive the updated car.

Following their podium at Silverstone, the #8 line-up of Anthony Davidson, Stéphane Sarrazin and Sébastien Buemi will again participate with a 2012-specification car.

The updated TS030 HYBRID features modifications to chassis and powertrain, with increased performance, reliability and serviceability the priorities.

A revised aerodynamic package, including an updated monocoque, delivers improved performance whilst minimising the impact of updated regulations in 2013 which increase the minimum weight for manufacturer LMP1 cars by 15kg.

The TOYOTA HYBRID System – Racing powertrain again uses a unique super capacitor to deliver 300hp of boost automatically, on top of the 530hp generated by a 3.4litre, normally-aspirated V8 petrol engine.

Ahead of a completely new development for 2014 due to regulation changes, TOYOTA’s Motor Sport Division in Higashifuji has fine-tuned the powertrain to improve power, efficiency, management of component usage and reliability.

TOYOTA’s position as world leader in hybrid vehicle technology was emphasised earlier this month when the company passed the 5million mark for sales of hybrid road cars.

The two-day race weekend at Spa begins on Friday with two practice sessions (09.00-11.00 and 14.30-16.30) before qualifying in the evening (18.50-19.20). Saturday sees a warm-up (09.00-09.20) before the six-hour race itself starts at 14.30.

Media photos of the updated TS030 HYBRID testing last week at Portimao are available here.

Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Team President: “Spa is one of two home races for our team, along with Fuji Speedway, as it’s just 120km away from TOYOTA Motorsport GmbH (TMG). So it is the perfect place to debut our 2013-specification car which we expect will show a performance improvement. Audi demonstrated in Silverstone that we need to make a step to regain the race-winning form we showed last year and I am confident our updated car will deliver. Nevertheless, our 2012-specification car remains competitive and it will be interesting to see how the race plays out. With many TMG staff members attending this race to cheer on the team, we have extra motivation to succeed so we are aiming to give them a result to celebrate.”