After two years of rumor & speculation, Racecar Engineering has finally discovered the full story behind the infamous Lexus LFA GTE racecar developed by Toyota Motorsports Germany:
Toyota Motorsport GmbH, the Japanese marque’s top level motorsport subsidiary developed a GTE car to race in the 2012 [World Endurance Championship] season. It had planned to race a single GTE car and a single LMP1 car that year and built cars to both specifications, the TS030 went on to contest the Le Mans 24 Hours, but the GTE car never officially existed.
The GTE plan was scrapped due to the logistics of running the two programmes simultaneously on the company’s return to Le Mans for the first time since 1999.
Despite the cancellation of the project the lessons learned with the GTE car appear to have been applied to the Gazoo Racing Lexus LFA which contested the 2013 Nurburgring 24 Hours.
Plenty more detail in the Racecar Engineering story — in the end, it appears the LFA GTE will never be used in a race. Extremely disappointing for Lexus racing fans.
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