Toyota Gazoo Racing Caps 100th Sports Car Race with 1-2 Victory
With a 1-2 finish at the 8 Hours of Portimão, Toyota Gazoo Racing celebrated victory at its 100th World Championship sports car race, further establishing itself as the manufacturer to beat in the new hypercar era of the World Endurance Championship.
The No. 8 GR010 Hybrid car of Sébastian Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, and Brendon Hartley, went wheel-to-wheel with its sister No. 7 car for a large part of the endurance race, eventually beating reigning champions Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and José María López by just 1.8 seconds.
Go Fast: Toyota unveils next-gen GR 86 sports car
Toyota’s main competitor was the Alpine A480-Gibson, which had taken pole position on Saturday by a slim margin. The Alpine seemed to have a slight pace advantage, one not significant enough to offset its thirstier engine. Ultimately, it had to stop for fuel too often to keep up with the two Toyotas.
“There was no room for mistakes from anyone; I was pleased to see us work as one team, giving our maximum without error,” said Hisatake Murata, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s team president. “The Hypercar class is really coming to life and I expect the fans can enjoy many close fights in the next races…Now we look forward to Monza, where we won our first World Championship race in 1992.”
Top Traction: Toyota AWD raises the bar
The race marked two important debuts: the first WEC race in Portugal and the launch of the much-anticipated Glickenhaus 007 hypercar — but it was a shaky start for the small, New York-based team. The 007 showed good pace when things were going well, but they often didn’t. During the race, the car needed a new clutch, crashed into an Aston Martin, and suffered from excessive tire wear. On the bright side, it still managed to get to the checkered flag, albeit 53 laps down.
Still, if Glickenhaus can sort its issues and Alpine continues to be as competitive as it was at Portimão, we can look forward to an exciting 24 Hours of Le Mans in August.
Kurt Verlin was born in France and lives in the United States. Throughout his life he was always told French was the language of romance, but it was English he fell in love with. He likes cats, music, cars, 30 Rock, Formula 1, and pretending to be a race car driver in simulators; but most of all, he just likes to write about it all. See more articles by Kurt.