Toyota takes the crown at the 24 Hours of Le Mans

KUALA LUMPUR: Toyota Gazoo Racing Team has been toiling it hard over the last two decades to just get its hand over the prestigious Le Mans championship title but the trophy managed to keep elusive. However, all of the hard work has proved to be fruitful as Toyota has finally taken on the jinx head on and managed to finish 1-2 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Porsche and Audi did pull out off the racing, but that, by no way, meant that Toyota’s task was cut out. The brand still had to work hard despite the absence of potent competition. The biggest threat was its own history of choking at crucial points.

The critics did opine that Toyota’s victory was on the card this season since the real competition wasn’t quite there. However, let’s not take away anything and give due credit to Fernando Alonso, Kazuki Nakajima, and Sebastien Buemi, the people in the No. 8 car. Moreover, it was Alonso, who had taken on the steering at the start and managed to take the car to the lead in the 4-hour mark.

The race between the two Toyota’s car (No. 7 and No 8) was looking interesting as they managed to take the lead for almost the entire race. The two cars shared the lead position in turns until No. 7 took over for a big lead after No. 8 was given a penalty of “60-second stop and go” for speeding up in a slow zone. However, this did not put No. 8 out of the contention of the lead as No. 7 (Kamui Kobayashi) missed a pit stop, which led to the conservatively slower lap. And thanks to this, the winner took over.

Back in 2016, Toyota suffered a painful loss, especially because it managed to be in the lead position for 23 hours 55 minutes. However, a little hardware issue kept the car away from grabbing the title. This year’s victory makes Toyota the second Japanese brand, after Mazda, to win the Le Mans.