The 89th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours will be a first of its kind, with the hypercar category adorning the grid for the first time. Following a hat-trick of Le Mans victories with its TS050 hybrid, Toyota Gazoo Racing competes with the new GR010 hybrid Hypercar for the first time at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 2021. It faces Hypercar competition from Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, which enters two 007C non-hybrid Hypercars, and Alpine, which participates with a grandfathered non-hybrid LMP1 car. 
Sebastien Buemi (SUI) / Kazuki Nakajima (JPN) / Brendon Hartley (NZL) #08 Toyota Racing, Toyota GR010, Hybrid.
18.07.2021. FIA World Endurance Championship, Rd 3, Monza, Italy. Photo: XPB Images
 
In addition to its quest for a fourth consecutive Le Mans win, the 2021 edition marks the 10th time Toyota has competed at La Sarthe with a hybrid-powered prototype. In the nine attempts so far, the team has won three times, earned five pole positions and finished on the podium a total of nine times.  In the September 2021 issue of Racecar Engineering magazine, Andrea Quintarelli undertook an in-depth analysis using lap time simulation to quantify and understand how the Hypercars may perform at Le Mans. The tool employed for this investigation was coded by the author and is based on a quasi-static approach: each small section of a track is analysed assuming a constant acceleration and that the vehicle is in steady-state conditions. The four-wheel vehicle model incorporat...