Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury has called for an “urgent” rethink of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Balance of Performance process, which he feels has led to “boring” and “artificial” racing this year.
Floury made the remarks during a 6 Hours of Sao Paulo weekend in which the two Toyota GR010 Hybrids made little impact, qualifying 10th and 18th before finishing 14th and 15th, three laps behind the winning Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry.
It was the latest in a succession of difficult races for the Japanese marque, which has yet to finish on the podium so far this season largely dominated by Ferrari.
Speaking to reporters after qualifying in Brazil, Floury made clear his frustration with what he called a “sad” situation, describing Cadillac’s performance in Brazil as predictable based on a BoP that gave the V-Series.R a 15 kW power boost compared to May’s Spa round (with the 24 Hours of Le Mans running to a standalone system).
Although he did not mention BoP by name — as the WEC’s sporting regulations forbid direct criticism of the system — he called for the FIA and ACO to agree a change of course with the manufacturers to come up with a revised process.
“I think this season is really sad in the sense that we’ve lost sights of what racing is all about and it has become far too artificial,” said Floury.
“It’s not about whether we need something to close the gaps between cars or not, this is accepted on our side, but the process is totally wrong.
“It’s a full season that is gone. Before we came here, I predicted that it would be Cadillac, Porsche and Peugeot, and they were in this order in qualifying, no surprise.
“When you receive the [BoP] table before the weekend, you already know what’s going to happen. This should not be the case.
“Collectively, as a group, with the other manufacturers and the FIA and ACO, I think it is urgent that we reconsider what we race for and what we should target because this season has been absolutely not good in this respect.
“We urgently need to find a solution. Otherwise I’m sure it will have some consequences.”
Floury went on to describe the 2025 season as “pretty boring” with the exception of May’s Spa round, which produced a close victory battle between Ferrari and Alpine.
“Spa generally produces good races,” he said. “[But] if you look at the standard of a Spa WEC race, this year was nothing exceptional.
“The rest of the season has been pretty boring, I would say, so far. Qatar, Imola, Le Mans and were not especially interesting.”
Floury’s comments follow the introduction of a new BoP methodology aimed at “100 percent convergence” for this season, which draws upon race data from previous races.
Initially, this was based on the previous three races, excluding Le Mans, but was revised to the best two from three for each car at Spa, while for the Sao Paulo race, only data taken from the previous two regular races at Imola and Spa were used.
Despite Toyota’s lack of competitiveness at both Imola and Spa, the GR010 Hybrid remained the joint-heaviest car in the Hypercar field together with the Ferrari 499P, which went to Brazil having won all four races up to that point, and the second-least powerful below the 250 km/h Power Gain threshold.
The GR010 ran with a 29 kg deficit to the Cadillac V-Series.R that took a dominant 1-2 finish, and a deficit of 31 kW (41.6 hp) below 250 km/h.
Floury continued: “Generally it’s a sad season and not only for us, but for the championship.
“I’m not talking only on behalf of us, but generally speaking, as a fan, as an enthusiast of the WEC, I feel like we’ve gone too far and we need to seriously reconsider.
“Right now, I struggle to know if someone wins a race deserved it or if it’s just artificial. This is an issue.
“I like close racing, I like the fighting on-track, but I also like that, at the end of the day, you get the feeling that the one who wins a race or the championship is the one having done the best job.
“I’m not saying that other manufacturers are doing a bad job because they are doing a good job. But at the end of the day you can always question now, with what we currently have, if the best [manufacturer] is winning or not.
“This is not good for the sport, definitely not.”
A spokesperson from the FIA was approached for comment by Sportscar365, but had not responded at the time of publication.
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