The Totoya number 7, piloted by the Japanese Kamui kobayashi, the Argentine José María “Pechito” López and the British Mike Conway, gave the Japanese team the fourth consecutive victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The 89th edition of the French classic it was, from start to finish, a heads-up between Toyotas number 7 and 8. The dominance of the Japanese brand, which equals four wins with Alfa Romeo and Ford in history, it was evident throughout the entire test.
Starting from the “Hyperpole“The first Toyota had a pleasant night at the La Sarthe circuit, leading the race at all times with advantages of more than a minute over the Toyota number 8, driven by the Swiss. Sebastian Buemi, the Japanese Kazuki nakajimoh the New Zealander Brendon hartley, which won the previous edition.
But on Sunday morning the defending champion GR010 had mechanical problems (apparently with the fuel tank) that forced him to do shorter and shorter relays (from 9 laps to 3 per driver) and lost almost all your chances of victory.
The advantage of his teammate, number 7, increased rapidly to more than 4 minutes and, although it decreased again, once the fault was resolved, the difference remained around one lap.
In the end there were two laps of advantage for the Toyota 7, which gave a total of 371 laps to the La Sarthe track, compared to 369 for number 8 and 367 for third-placed, the Alpine A480 Gibson that ended with Nicolas Lapierre at the wheel, which was also directed by the Brazilian Andre Negrao and french Matthieu Vaxiviere.
The first three final positions are the same with which the race began at 4:00 p.m. on Saturday. Fourth place, 2:34 behind the winners, went to the Glickenhaus 708 driven by the Brazilian Luis Felipe “Pipo” Derani and the French Franck Mailleux and Olivier Pla.