24H Le Mans: Toyota under slight pressure
FAST PRIVATE TEAMS Toyota unsurprisingly secured the two front grid positions for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. But the private LMP1 prototypes are faster than ever in 2019. With their fastest times in Thursday night's qualifying session, Japanese Kamui Kobayashi and Kazuki Nakajima on the two Toyota hybrid factory cars captured the two front row grid positions. As the starting driver [...]
With their fastest times in Thursday night's qualifying session, Japanese Kamui Kobayashi and Kazuki Nakajima captured the two front-row grid positions on the two Toyota hybrid factory cars. As starting drivers, Mike Conway of Great Britain and Sébastien Buemi of Vaud will tackle the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours at 3 p.m. on Saturday for Team Toyota Gazoo Racing, which has already been determined as the world champion.
Buemi wants second win and world championship title
Le Mans is the final round of the 2018/19 SuperSeason, which began in Spa in May 2018 and exceptionally includes two 24-hour races at the same venue within the World Championship. For Buemi, this is a unique opportunity to win at Le Mans for the second time in twelve months. In addition, together with Fernando Alonso and Nakajima, he can become drivers' world champion for the second time since 2014 if he finishes at least fifth overall over the full distance in a possible victory for the second Toyota team.
With a lead of 30 points, the world championship leaders could therefore drive tactically and completely to arrive. But because a triumph at Le Mans counts more than anything else, an open duel between the two Toyota teams is to be expected.
Two private LMP1 teams as Toyota chasers
Whether there will also be an open battle for overall victory among several teams remains to be seen. In any case, the private LMP1 teams were faster than ever before thanks to technical concessions to even out the odds. As the third-best car, the Russian BR1 with AER turbo engine from SMP Racing with the trio of Egor Orudzhev, Sergey Sirotkin and Stéphane Sarrazin lost just 66 hundredths to Kobayashi's pole time of 3'15.497 (average 250.9 km/h).
The two Swiss-flagged Rebellion R13-Gibson cars and the second BR-AER also stayed within touching distance with times in the 3'16s. Whether they will be over the distance depends on reliability, the error rate and, not least, the necessary racing luck.
A year ago, the two Rebellions finished third and fourth overall, 12 and 13 laps behind the two superior Toyota cars. The Rebellion of Neel Jani, André Lotterer and Bruno Senna will start from sixth position.
More Swiss with ambitions for the class podium
In the LMP2 class, which is the most heavily populated with 20 cars, the Oreca 07-Gibson of High Class Racing with Geneva-based Mathias Beche is tenth on the grid and the identical car of Graff Racing with Jonathan Hirschi from Neuchâtel 14th. A year ago, Hirschi advanced from midfield to second place at the end of the LMP2 race.
Marcel Fässler's factory Corvette tackles the marathon from eleventh starting position in the LMGTE-Pro class. 15 of the 17 GT factory cars, led by an Aston Martin Vantage AMR, were within two seconds of each other with their best qualifying times. So anything is still possible for the three-time overall Le Mans winner from Canton Schwyz.
Women's team in focus
At most, Rahel Frey and her teammates Michelle Gatting and Manuela Gostner can push towards the podium via consistency. Their Ferrari 488 GTE entered by Kessel Racing is 15th in the LMGTE-Am class and starts from the back row of the 61-car field. In terms of pure speed, the women's trio has no chance against the fastest in their class. However, the main goal is the first finish by an all-female team in more than four decades.
With Eurosport around the clock
The free-to-air TV channel Eurosport1 will broadcast the entire race live with German commentary from Saturday at 2:45 p.m. until Sunday after the finish at 3 p.m.
