Home » Le Mans: Toyota’s No. 7 car group achieves redemption, Ye Yifei loses victory in LMP2 group

Le Mans: Toyota’s No. 7 car group achieves redemption, Ye Yifei loses victory in LMP2 group

by admin

Kobayashi Kamui, Mike Conway, and Jos Maria Lopez teamed up with the No. 7 Toyota team that won the 89th Le Mans 24 hours, and finally completed the redemption after many years of heartbreak, and it has become this The first winner of the famous endurance race after entering the Hypercar era.

In the previous qualifying, Kobayashi won the pole position for the No. 7 car. Facing the rainy start, Conway drove the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid smoothly into the first turn, while the No. 8 Toyota, which was started by Sebastian Buémi, was taken away by the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH. After the top came, it led to a decline in the ranking.

This accident caused the No. 36 Alpine car to briefly rise to second place. This year, the Signatech Alpine team, which has won many times in the LMP2 group, joined the LMP1 group and used the R-13 car used by Rebellion last year. However, when Nicholas Lapierre had a situation in Indianapolis, Conway’s No. 7 car took a solid lead.

When the No. 8 car slowly caught up, the leading No. 7 car group spent a safe night, although the LMP2 group car caused many accidents. Before the race entered the final third of the race, Toyota had already occupied the top two, and the number 8 car appeared to be expected to compete for victory.

However, fuel-related issues once again dealt a blow to Buemi, Brandon Hartley, and Kazuki Nakajima’s crew because they had to shorten the interval for refueling. Not only that, Buémi once parked on the side of the track and it took about a minute to restart. Although the No. 7 car also encountered similar fuel problems, Toyota found a countermeasure to ensure that both cars can finish the race smoothly.

Podium: overal winners #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid Hypercar, Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez, second place #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid Hypercar, Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley, third place #36 Alpine Elf Matmut Alpine A480 – Gibson Hypercar of André Negrão, Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere

Photo by: Marc Fleury

The last shot of the No. 7 car was taken care of by Kobayashi, which allowed him to finally get redemption at the Lasat circuit after the 2017 tragedy. Four years ago, Kobayashi, Conway, and then teammate Stefan Sarasin had a huge lead. However, in the chaos in the pit lane, Kobayashi mistakenly gave him the thumbs up by LMP2 driver Vincent Capillaire. The start signal from the track rescuer resulted in a malfunction of the racing clutch and missed the chance to help Toyota win Le Mans for the first time.

See also  Incredible winning streak of the Czech tennis super talent!

Starting in 2018, Toyota has dominated Le Mans for three consecutive years, but the No. 7 car group lost to the No. 8 car group of Fernando Alonso in the first two times, and in 2020 it will only be able to finish the race in third place. , Although they won the WEC world championship in the same year.

Last Sunday, the moment that belonged to the No. 7 car finally arrived. In the final stage, Toyota let two cars in different laps pit for a short refueling in order to complete the scene where 1-2 people collided with each other. Kobayashi, Conway and Lopez thus became the first Le Mans championship car in the Hypercar era.

The No. 36 car group consisting of Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere won third place, making Alpine the first French team to climb the Lassart podium after the Peugeot in 2011.

The Glickenhaus Racing team, which debuted for the first time, had troubles in the early stages and never threatened other cars in the highest category, but cars No. 708 and 709 still ranked fourth and fifth in the overall results list, completing a low-key first. Show.

#31 Team WRT Oreca 07 – Gibson LMP2, Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi

Photo by: Nick Dungan / Motorsport Images

Group LMP2: Before Ye Yifei is leading, the dream is broken before the finish line

In contrast, the LMP2 group with as many as 25 cars spent a dramatic 24 hours. The WRT team that originally participated for the first time is expected to take the top two in this group.

After a night of constant accidents, at dawn on Sunday, cars No. 31 and No. 41 were in the top two in the LMP2 group. At that time, Robin Flins, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi were in the No. 31 car, ahead of Robert Kubica, Ye Yifei, Louis Deleterazzi’s 41 car. However, after entering the last two hours, the #41 car group passed the sister car after a pit stop.

However, when Ye Yifei drove the No. 41 car, he could once again achieve the feat of the Chinese driver’s victory in the LMP2 group at Le Mans. With less than 3 minutes left in the race, the car suddenly stopped on the track-WRT The team initially judged after the race that it may have been a failure of the electronic system that caused the loss of power.

#41 Team WRT Oreca 07 – Gibson LMP2, Robert Kubica, Louis Delatraz, Yifei Ye

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Car No. 41 suffered bad luck, and because it failed to pass the finish line, it was eventually classified as unfinished. In the final lap, WRT almost “flew away the cooked duck”, because the JOTA car No. 28 has chased behind the car No. 31, but the latter was the first to cross the line with only 0.7 seconds advantage. In order to pass the slow car and avoid being overtaken by the JOTA car before the finish line, Flins almost hit the race director Patrick Morisseau waving the checkered flag.

See also  Gotti, renewal at risk: Udinese looks at three profiles

Stover van Dorn, Tom Bromquist and Sean Glyer, who joined together for the first time at Le Mans, unfortunately won second place. Under the deep night, the No. 28 car used to lead, but because it passed the car line under the safety car and rolled to the white line when pitting, it was penalized for 90 seconds and passed through the pit lane, and slipped to fifth place. . If this is not the case, the combination of Van Dorn, Blomqvist and Glaier has a chance to win the game.

The No. 65 Panis Racing car group Will Stevens, Julien Canal and James Allen lead the No. 23 United Autosports car group and rank third.

I have to admit that WRT won with a dark horse posture, benefiting from the troubles of many popular teams in the LMP2 group at night. First, Antonio Felix da Costa took off the pole position of this group and took the lead after the start of the race. The No. 38 JOTA car, driven by Anthony Davidson, had an accident at Turn 1 and never won.

On the other hand, Franco Colapinto of G-Drive’s No. 26 car had an accident in the slow zone before the Porsche corner and crashed into Sophia Frollshu’s No. 1 Richard Mille car. Another G-Drive car, No. 25, retired after Rui Andrade had a severe collision at Dunlop.

United Autosports’ hopes of winning also dissipated in the dark. The No. 32 car lost control at turn one under the control of Manuel Maldonado and crashed into his teammate Paul Di Resta who was driving the No. 23 sister car. On the contrary, the team’s No. 22 WEC conventional car group was relatively smooth for a while, until the car’s alternator malfunctioned and had to undergo long-term maintenance. However, the No. 23 car group finally caught up to fourth place.

This year’s Le Mans LMP2 group is full of rare highlights. The No. 21 DragonSpeed ​​car in which Colombian stars Juan Pablo Montoya, Ben Hanley and Henrik Hedman belonged is the winner of the Pro-Am group.

In addition, Jan Magnussen and Kevin Magnussen, who made their debut as father and son files, and Danish compatriot Anders Fjordbach ranked 18th.

See also  Changing rooms, access only to the immunized Pavia deals with no vax players

LMGTE Pro winners Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Côme Ledogar, # 51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE Pro, LMGTE Am winners François Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera, # 83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

GTE Pro group: Ferrari beats Corvette

The GTE Pro group originally seemed to be dominated by AF Corse Ferrari, but with excellent strategy and performance, the No. 63 Corvette became the spoiler. The No. 52 AF Corse car shared by Sam Bird, Miguel Molina and Daniel Serra fell in the rankings due to a left-rear suspension problem. On Sunday morning, Bird suffered a flat tire and suffered even more serious losses.

In the end, the victory became a battle between the No. 51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo car and the No. 63 Corvette C8.R car. The No. 51 Ferrari car in charge of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Come Ledogar was the first in three years after 2019. Won the GTE Pro group championship twice. Among them, Pier Guidi and Calado climbed to the highest podium of the group for the second time at Lasat, and Ledogar experienced this special moment for the first time.

Porsche experienced a disappointing trip to Le Mans. After an accident in the Super Qualifying Competition, the Porsche 911 RSR-19 car No. 92 was rebuilt on Friday. However, Kevin Estre, Neel Jani and Michael Christensen were unable to threaten their competitors in the race. They only defeated the No. 91 sister car and finished third, one lap behind the winning No. 51 car.

Although the private racing team HubAuto accidentally took off the pole position of this group, Maxime Martin collided with an LMP2 car shortly after the start of the race, resulting in a time loss that was difficult to recover. The failure of the transmission system eventually forced it to retire.

In the GTE Am group, the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari had the last laugh. The No. 33 TF Sport Aston Martin car that had taken the lead, rushed out of Turn One at night, giving up the lead to the teams of Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera and Francois Perrodo. Waiting on, the No. 83 car steadily took the lead, and finally finished the race first by one lap ahead of the No. 33 opponent. The No. 80 Iron Lynx Ferrari ranked third.

LMGTE Am class winners François Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessio Rovera, # 83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More

Privacy & Cookies Policy