WEC: Season 1 is a WRAP - Toyota impresses during inaugural year of new FIA world championship

摘要

FEW WOULD HAVE predicted the events of the second half of the new-for-2012 FIA. World Endurance Championship on that fateful day last January when Peugeot axed its Le Mans Prototype racing program. Its decision could have pulled the rug from under the series and would remove any interest in the hattle at the sharp end of the grid. Audi was going to dominate, right? Wrong. The German manufacturer/ which battled so hard with its French rival through the first two seasons of the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup in 2010-11, found a worthy replacement in Toyota as the series morphed into an FIA-sanctioned world championship. Toyota billed 2012 as a test-and-development year for its gasoline-electric hybrid and looked set to contest just three races, but in the light of Peugeot's withdrawal, it stepped up to contest six of the eight WEC rounds and was rewarded with some phenomenal results.