It looks like a Toyota, and to the untrained eye it could be an LMP1. Yet the machine that will carry the Japanese manufacturer's hopes in a brave new era for the World Endurance Championship starting this year is a very different beast to the line of prototypes that preceded it.
The Toyota GR010 HYBRID developed to the new Le Mans Hypercar regulations is all new, save for the odd switch and sensor. It had to be, because there's a new ruleset with a new philosophy.
The aero rules are different, and so are those governing the technology that has been the selling point of the top class of the WEC since the rebirth of the series in 2012. The GR010 couldn't retain much from its predecessor, the TS050 HYBRID LMP1 car that won the Le Mans 24 Hours three times and the WEC twice, such has been the "magnitude of the regulation change", explains Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon.