Toyota TS030 Hybrid

The Toyota TS030 Hybrid is a motor racing car developed under Le Mans Prototype rules. The car ran at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, with two cars being entered in the LMP1 category, and became the first hybrid car to be entered in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The car features the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) regenerative braking device (the Le Mans organisers, ACO, use the alternate name ERS.) Toyota have elected to apply the extra power to the rear wheels. Under the 2012 Le Mans rules they were allowed to use the system at any speed, unlike Audi who had elected to send power to the front, with a restriction to a minimum speed of 120 km/h.

Racing History
The car marked Toyota's first works entry at the 24 Hours of Le Mans since the Toyota GT-One was entered in the 1999 race. The car was expected to make its debut at the 6 Heures de Spa-Francorchamps in May 2012, but a testing crash at Paul Ricard damaged the chassis beyond repair, and the team was forced to delay the TS030's debut until the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June because of the time needed to produce a new monocoque. On lap 82 at Le Mans, Anthony Davidson's TS030 became airborne after a collision with Piergiuseppe Perazzini's Ferrari, and collided hard with track barriers. Davidson suffered two broken vertebrae (T11 & T12) from the incident. The second TS030, which had briefly led the race before the accident, retired several hours later after an engine failure.

After finishing in second place at the 6 Hours of Silverstone, the TS030 Hybrid took its first pole position and victory at the 6 Hours of São Paulo race, held at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo, Brazil. It finished the 2012 season with two more victories at the 6 Hours of Fuji and the 6 Hours of Shanghai.

Results summary
Results in bold indicate pole position. Results in italics indicate fastest lap.