For the third year in a row, Toyota celebrated winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But yet again, problems for the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid denied three of the Toyota drivers the chance to celebrate.
The #7 car, like last year, was driven by Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and José María López. In the #8 car were Sébastian Buemi, and Kazuki Nakajima, and Brendon Hartley, the same as last year as well except for Hartley replacing Fernando Alonso.
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Every driver in the #8 car had previously won Le Mans, either with Toyota or with Porsche, while all of the drivers in the #7 car were still hunting their first win.
In 2018, the #8 car had won on merit, giving Toyota its first-ever Le Mans victory. In 2019, there was a sense that the #7 car deserved its turn, especially as all of its drivers had been with Toyota during its heartbreaking defeats in 2016 and 2017.
And just as they had last year, the #7 drivers seemed poised to win it at first. It was comfortably leading the race for hours until, at night, the car suffered an exhaust manifold problem. The Toyota crew was forced to change the entire assembly and right-hand-side turbo, costing the team about 30 minutes..
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Conway, Kobayashi, and López thus fell down to fourth and were only able to claw their way back to third before the 24-hour mark as its sister car won the race yet again.
“I’m definitely running out of words to talk to the drivers of car #7,” Toyota’s technical director Pascal Vasselon said after the race. “Car #7 was clearly a bit faster than car #8. Two times in a row they would deserve to win and something happened that was beyond their control, so I feel very sorry for the #7 drivers. “They do everything right, they prepare well, they are fast and every time something goes wrong that is not in their hands. The entire team feels sorry for them.”
Nonetheless, Toyota was pleased to celebrate its third consecutive Le Mans win, and the last in the LMP1 era. Next year will see the introduction of new hypercar regulations, and there’s no telling which manufacturer will have the upper hand then.
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.