Toyota achieved a fifth consecutive victory in the 90th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans this Sunday, thus continuing its hegemonic dominance in the legendary French circuit.
The Toyota N.8 of Brendan Hartley, Sébastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa was reunited with victory after the treble of 2018, 2019 and 2020, ahead of the brand’s sister vehicle, the N.7, winner last year and which had with Argentine José María ‘Pechito’ López as one of the three pilots.
For more than 16 hours, the two Toyotas rode wheel to wheel at the head of the race, frequently alternating in the lead.
But around 07:45 local time (5:45 GMT), the Toyota N.7 stopped on the track and had to return to the pits due to an electronic problem that caused it to lose a lap and mortgaged its chances of victory.
Despite this setback, Toyota never saw its one-two finish threatened, despite the fact that the Glickenhaus N.709 and N.708 were very competitive in their second participation in this race, finishing third and fourth.
Toyota thus signed a new victory in the most mythical endurance motor racing race in the world, finally freed from the sanitary restrictions of the last two years.
This fifth consecutive victory in the premier class of hypercars comes a year before the return of the great names of motorsport: Ferrari, Porsche, Audi, BMW, Cadillac… They will all be at Le Mans on the centenary of the race in June of 2023.
It is also the fourth victory at Le Mans for the 33-year-old Buemi, who has also driven an F1 car in the past.
– Earliness record –
In the lower step, the Oreca N.38 of the Jota team, which had been leading since Saturday afternoon, took the victory in LMP2, a category in which the American John Pierson, who at 16 years of age has become the most youngest to run this race, he finished sixth with his Oreca N.23, and finally the Porsche N.91 won in LMGTE Pro, taking advantage of the abandonment of the two Corvettes.
In LMGTE Am, it was TF Sport’s Aston Martin N.33 that took the win. The Italian Iron Dames team, formed only by women, finished in 7th position in this category, which had a total of 23 participants.
In total, eight of the 62 cars that started the race were unable to finish it, although there were no serious accidents to report.
rbo-fcc / fbx / iga-mcd