Le Mans Series
Rebellion Racing confirms Toyota partnership
© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat
REBELLION Racing and Toyota Motorsport GmbH are pleased to confirm their plans for a Le Mans Prototype LMP1 engine supply partnership. The agreement will see two REBELLION Racing Lola LMP1 cars powered by Toyota engines, commencing with the 2011 season when REBELLION Racing will be the exclusive partner of Toyota Motorsport in LMP1.
Alexandre Pesci, Rebellion Racing Team Principal: “This agreement is the cornerstone of REBELLION’s challenge for the forthcoming season. Toyota is an impressive and remarkable industrial giant, we are proud to have been selected by Toyota Motorsport as their partner in this project. It means a lot for our team to have secured their support in our efforts to target the victory.”
Bart Hayden, Rebellion Racing Team Manager: “We are delighted to become a partner of Toyota Motorsport and are excited about working alongside a company with a Formula One background and a rich history at Le Mans. We look forward to establishing a strong and long term relationship with them.”
Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Toyota Motorsport President: “Toyota Motorsport has recent experience of engine supply partnerships from our Formula One days so we are drawing on that to deliver a reliable and competitive engine. We are looking forward to working with REBELLION Racing on this exciting project and it was very pleasing to see this engine running in a car for the first time, particularly because the performance, as well as the reliability, was very encouraging.”
Martin Birrane, Executive Chairman of Lola Group: “Lola is delighted to be the 2011 LMP constructor of choice for Toyota Motorsport and REBELLION Racing. Supporting our customers at the very highest level has always been and will continue to be very important to Lola. We once again look forward to taking the challenge to the factory works teams next year.”
The partnership between REBELLION Racing and Toyota Motorsport started some weeks ago when, as the first result of combined work from Lola and Sebah Automotive, an interim Lola-Toyota was shaken down in early October at Snetterton in the UK.
At the end of October, REBELLION Racing and Toyota Motorsport engineers conducted an evaluation test programme at Portimao, Portugal and Monteblanco, Spain. The Lola-Toyota test car achieved high mileage, providing valuable data and experience in terms of performance and reliability with the Toyota engine.
REBELLION Racing is also pleased to announce that the team have renewed the contracts of its regular 2010 drivers. Neel Jani / Nicolas Prost and Andrea Belicchi / Jean-Christophe Boullion will again spearhead the REBELLION Racing attack. Their qualities and performances during the 2010 Le Mans Series and Le Mans 24 Hours with the Lola-Rebellion LMP1 cars led the Swiss team to renew their partnership for the 2011 season. The additional drivers for the 24 Hours of Le Mans will be announced at a later date.
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Interesting…. But i’ll take it. Toyota is back in F1 (engine supply only). And now back in the Sports Car Racing world.
I’ll definately take it – it’s good to see new combo’s.
I think I’m right in saying that prototypes are seemingly quite healthy at the moment.
The key factor will be how much effort Toyota puts in the program. The cars’ performance will tell us.
@Bamba: Yea time will tell
Very good developments. I think them diesels are in for a completely different magnitude of opponents, come 2011…
thats good news, toyota, aston,audi,peugeot in lmp1
@Christopher Bouchard
And hopefully Honda aswell.
Well don’t think the lola built customer chassis will be on part with the works chassis of peugeot and audi.
For proof look at the honda engine in the honda chassis compared to the honda engine in the lola chassis. No comparison at all. The only saving grace for toyota is if it happens to be a road car engine then they can get a gigantic restrictor like the aston-lola.
@bamba
Really, I’m sure that there is no advantage whatsoever for using a road engine in LMP1 for 2011 due to the changes to LMP2. If they were going to use a road engine, they may aswell enter LMP2.
Turns out toyota is using the engine from their super GT lexus, so i’m not sure that would count even by 2010 regulations.
well super gt engines are full race engines.
Using a production engines still gets you the large restrictor, because they’re heavier, do not rev as high , and are less technologically advanced.
But they’re cheaper.
Good news even though they have no hybrid (so far) and no bespoke car like TS020.
RV8K engine which run in superGT and formula nippon is basically optimized for front engined car because as we can see unique design that cam geartrain is put at rear side of the engine.
anyhow looking forward to see JCB driven Rebellion-Toyoya in Sarthe and LMS. Please enter ILMC aswell in future!