Despite starting low on the grid, Toyota is aiming for victory at Le Mans
Author of the bad qualifications, the Toyotas will start from the back of the grid for the 24 Hours. Despite these distant positions, the brand's technical director remains confident in the progress of the race.
Toyota is going to go very far. The two reigning world champion cars will start from 11th and 23rd places. An unusual position for the Japanese team. This is explained in particular by a serious mistake by Kamui Kobayashi, which caused a red flag. He was therefore sanctioned by race control, which removed his lap times. Then, traffic hindered the sister car, #8.
« We are a bit disgusted, summarizes Sébastien Buémi of the #8. « You have 62 cars at the same time, it’s not great. But we have to accept the fact that it’s the same for everyone. I set the best time in FP1, Brendon in the second session.
« Things didn’t line up. It happens. The performance was there. We had the potential to put both cars in Hyperpole. We struggled to get a clear lap. We only had one on the 7 and none on the 8 », details David Floury, technical director of Toyota. « It’s frustrating to have the potential and not be able to achieve it. » According to him, it would be better to have qualifying by category, as is the case for the rest of the WEC rounds.
Despite the poor positions of his machines, he remains confident for the final result of his cars on Sunday at 4 p.m. « If I didn’t believe in victory, I wouldn’t be here. The goal is to start 11th and win. Or to start last and win. It will add a challenge, which we could have done without. »
Without the Hyperpole, Toyota did not work on the fast lap but instead focused on race management and settings.
