Has Toyota already won the 24 2022 Hours of Le Mans?

Facts : McLaren suffered its worst start to the season in F1 for a long time with a 14th and a 15th place for Daniel Ricciardo et Lando Norris in the night of Sakhir (Bahrain). More than the raw result, it is the glaring performance deficit which leaves the fans and even the staff at the head of the British team without answer. “We are behind and it is very complicated to understand what exactly we are suffering from,” recognized Team Principal Andreas Seidl.

YES, by Medhi Casaurang-Vergez

The Frenchman is often portrayed as an eternal complainer; then, when it is necessary to pay attention to the 24 Hours of Le Mans 2022, je revêts ce costume avec grand plaisir. La prudence et la sagesse ordonneront aux responsables du Toyota Gazoo Racing ainsi qu’à ses pilotes de ne pas vendre la peau de l’ours avant de l’avoir tué, mais il faudrait être rêveur pour se convaincre que la marque japonaise n’aborde pas la ronde sarthoise dans la peau du grandissime favori.

There was a time not long ago when the media spoke of the “Toyota curse”. Between the beginning of the 1990s and the mid-2010s, the Japanese giant had always broken its teeth on the French myth.

1️⃣ iconic circuit
4️⃣ cars
🔟 years of hybrid# LeMans24 #ToyotaGAZOORacing #PushingTheLimitsForBetter #WEC pic.twitter.com/AbJIDh1cpX

— TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WEC (@TGR_WEC) June 6, 2022

Or, depuis, de l’eau a coulé sous la passerelle Dunlop. Tous les grands adversaires de Toyota en LM P1 ont déguerpi (Audi et Porsche), laissant le prototype blanc, noir et rouge dominer outrageusement l’Endurance. Toyota took on the costume that Audi had worn at the start of the 2000st century. The strike force of a manufacturer crushes everything in its path, Pescarolo in the XNUMXs, the Team Cameron Glickenhaus today.

One of the big Achilles heels of the Hypercar show is the lack of adversity. It is not on a regular basis thatAlpine may worry Toyota. Their LM P1 could almost have its place in the 24 Hours Museum, adjacent to the first corner of the Circuit de la Sarthe and the numerous widths of the technical regulations via the Balance of Performance betray a lack of intrinsic balance between a Hypercar at the cutting edge of technology and a dated prototype.

As for the Glickenhaus team, the role of Little Thumb is valiant, and we wish them all the courage necessary to take up the gauntlet against a juggernaut. That's quite simply what we're missing: a manufacturer, a factory team capable of competing on equal terms with Toyota. For this, we will still have to wait until 2023, and the arrival of Peugeot , Ferrari, Porsche, or Cadillac.

So of course, Toyota is used to giving us scares, just to spice up a race which is sorely lacking in jolts in the premier category. This will probably still be the case in 2022, as shown by the breakdown at Spa-Francorchamps of Sébastien Buemi. But the glitches will be sufficiently circumscribed not to unduly handicap the good scheduling of the TGR, or at least of one of the two cars entered in Hypercar.

Finally, the effectiveness of human forces no longer needs to be demonstrated. Toyota has been at the top of world endurance racing for exactly 10 years. This experience is unmatched on the side ofAlpine and Glickenhaus, respectively present at Le Mans in LM P1/Hypercar since 2021. So much for the rational side, But despite everything, the passionate soul that resonates in me would love to be wrong and see an uncertain race full of spectacle...

No, by Valentin Glo

Of course not, Toyota didn't win a race. The Japanese manufacturer certainly emerges as the big favorite for this 90th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with its series of invincibility that began in 2018, but its domination is not as clear as it has been in recent years. This season, the team based in Cologne (Germany) is still looking for its cruising speed. At Sebring, on such a special circuit, the GR010s could do nothing against Alpine and the No. 8 had to settle for second place. A position that she could even have lost to Glickenhaus in the last hour of the race, if the latter had not been interrupted one hour from the end.

In Spa-Francorchamps, Toyota has certainly found its way to victory with its reigning world champion car, the No. 7, but the damage to the hybrid system of the No. 8 raises questions. In 2021, the fuel contamination problem that appeared on the two prototypes was able to be negotiated thanks to the significant lead they had over their pursuers. As this double round of the clock approaches, the two Toyotas do not seem to have the same margin. Certainly, the No. 7 dominated the Test Day, but by only 0.208 seconds over the Glickenhaus No. 708. The small American team made progress in these first races of the season with a first podium in the general classification obtained at Sebring and a pole position at Spa, demonstrating that the speed of the 007 was as sharp as its reliability.

Reliability will also be the main card ofAlpine for this race. For a year, the Dieppe brand has demonstrated flawless reliability, symbolized by eight consecutive podiums with the same car and the same crew. The 480 tricolor will not compete with Toyota in pure speed, but will rely on the hazards of racing to hope to win the Grail. That's the magic of Le Mans: over 24 hours anything can happen, and it's not always the fastest car that emerges victorious from the double clock. So ask Kazuki Nakajima what he thinks...