Toyota stuck in “second class” with Cadillac, Aston Martin at Le Mans

Toyota feels it was relegated to the “second class” in the Le Mans 24 Hours and never had the pace to fight against Ferrari and Porsche for a spot on the podium.

Toyota feels it was effectively consigned to a “second class” in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, as it never had the pace to fight against Ferrari and Porsche for a spot on the podium.

The Japanese manufacturer endured its worst finish in the French endurance classic since 2017, with Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries finishing a lap down in sixth in the best of the two GR010 Hybrids.

It followed a difficult qualifying for Toyota in which the No. 7 car of Kobayashi, Conway and de Vries failed to make it to Hypercar, while the sister entry could only take 10th on the grid after failing to set a timed lap in the final session.

Although the No. 8 briefly led the race during the night with Ryo Hirakawa at the wheel, he was quickly overtaken by Yifei Ye in the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari that went on to win.

Asked if Toyota ever had a realistic shot at victory in Le Mans, its technical director David Floury was unequivocal: “No. We were [running] first for [some time], But on pure performance there was no way we could compete.

“There was never any potential of performance. It was a two class race, one with the cars having top speed and one with the cars having no top speed. Unfortunately, we got the wrong ticket and we were in the second class with Cadillac and Aston Martin.”

Drama for No. 8 Toyota

The No. 8 Toyota’s hopes of top-five finish ended when the front-left wheel detached with just over four hours remaining. Hirakawa limped the car back to the pits on three wheels, but the incident necessitated a full replacement of the front-left assembly, costing the crew seven laps.

Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi were eventually classified 16th.

Floury said Toyota still needs to analyse the wheel nut issue, but revealed that a regular mechanic was unavailable on Sunday due to injury, prompting the team to bring in a replacement.

“We had one of our pit stop mechanics who got injured, so he went to hospital and also this happened during the night,” he explained. “He got surgery this morning, so this was not very good news. So I hope he will recover quickly. 

“After that it's not the mechanics’ responsibility. It's a combination of factors and we still need to analyse.”

Early trouble for the No. 7

The No. 7 Toyota was on the back foot from the very beginning of the race after picking up substantial bodywork damage, which was clearly visible from TV images.

To make matters worse, Kobayashi picked up a hefty 50-second stop/go penalty for exceeding the pitlane speed limit by 19km/h.

This, Floury revealed, was caused by Kobayashi failing to push the pit limiter button on the car.

“We wanted to stay out of trouble, but in Turn 1 we got sandwiched, so we had damage on both sides of the car and it was too long to fix, so we had to race with it,” he said.

“When you start the race with holes in the bodywork and you don't know exactly if it will hold together or not, it's not the best start.

“We had a lock-up in Mulsanne, which pushed us to use some tyre potential early in the race. This was not good news as well. 

“And then we had a stop and go for speeding in the pitlane, the pit limiter in the driver change was switched off.”