Hybrid racer for Le Mans

Toyota will compete in the Le Mans 24-Hour endurance race next year with a new hybrid-power sports car.

It's return to the world's most famous endurance race will be with a new LMP1, designed, developed and produced by Toyota Motorsport in Germany. It is equipped with a hybrid-petrol powertrain engineered by Toyota in Japan.

Le Mans will be one of a number of races Toyota proposes to enter in the 2012 FIA World Endurance Championship, a competition that will enable it to further explore the potential of its hybrid technology.

The new team will be based at Toyota Motorsport's Cologne headquarters and it is expected that the new car will be rolled out early next year for an extensive pre-season testing programme.

Tadashi Yamashina, Toyota Motorsport chairman, said: "Toyota has entered Le Mans before, but using our hybrid technology this time will be a completely new challenge. We want to write a new chapter in the history of the Le Mans 24-Hour, as in the FIA World Endurance Championship, through our use of hybrid technology. Racing will help enhance our production-car technology."

Toyota last competed in the Le Mans 24-Hour as a manufacturer in the late 1990s racing the GT-One, a car which famously established a new race-lap record in 1999.