Toyota still lagging behind Porsche

Toyota Gazoo Racing risque encore de peiner face à Porsche aux 6 Heures du COTA à Austin (Texas). Les TS050 Hybrid ont échoué en deuxième ligne derrière les 919 Hybrid en échouant à plus d’une seconde de la pole réalisée par la n°1 de Neel Jani et Nick Tandy.

The Toyota No. 8 which was entrusted to Sébastien Buemi et Kazuki Nakajima failed in third place, 1”6 behind the benchmark. The crew completed by Stéphane Sarrazin in this event lost ground following a slight error from the Swiss.

“I'm sorry to Kazuki and the team because I made a mistake at turn 11. I locked the front wheels and went straight, which made me lose a lap, recognized Sébastien Buemi. We expected to be behind the Porsches but not to this extent. We will attack in the race. It’s a long ordeal and we never give up. »

The TS050 Hybrid n°7 was even further behind since Mike conway et Kamui Kobayashi, teammates of José Maria Lopez, finished 2”3 behind the first Porsche 919 Hybrid. This time, it was traffic that was to blame.

“I'm very upset because I lost a lot of time behind an LMP2, explained Mike Conway. He came out of the pits just as I was starting my flying lap. He just drove along without paying attention to what was going on around him while I flashed his headlights at him throughout the straight and in the middle sector. »

Toyota Gazoo Racing is 56,5 points behind Porsche with four races remaining in the season. The Davidson-Buemi-Nakajima trio, closest rival to the leading Hartley-Bamber-Bernhard crew, is 41 units behind.

The start of the 6 Hours of COTA will take place this Saturday at 19 p.m. French time. The event will be broadcast on L’Équipe.