World Endurance Championship takes a blow and gets some hope.

This year brought the shocking news that Peugeot was withdrawing its sports car racing program.  However, good things were still to come to the World Endurance Championship with the announcment of Toyota's new hybrid prototype.  Peugeot was Audi's main rival with thier 908 prototype.  They were racing the 908 in the 24 hours of Le Mans since 2007.  Peugeot blames the euro crisis for its withdrawal.

Toyota's TS030 Hybrid will make it's debut at Spa on May 5th.  Porsche also has a new prototype but it will not debut until 2014.

The TS030's powertrain is based around a 3.4 Liter V8.  It also uses super-capacitors instead of batteries to store energy from its regenerative braking system.  The drivers who participated in the testing for this car included Alex Wurz, Nicholas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima.  Toyota said the car demonstrated "a satisfying level of performance and reliability.

Some facts and quotes were found in Racer magazine.