MOTORSPORT: Aussie's Le Mans glory, Toyota ends curse

While Toyota has finally won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, 23-year-old Australian rookie Matt Campbell was victorious in his class.

At its 20th attempt, Toyota not only triumphed in the French classic but its two TS050 Hybrids – twin-turbocharged 2.4-litre petrol V6 TS050s with an eight megajoule (8MJ) hybrid system consisting of a motor-generator at each axle – made it a quinella.

The Japanese manufacturer became that country’s first other than Mazda in 1991 to succeed in what is widely regarded as the world’s greatest car race.

While Toyota dominated among the prototypes, Porsche won both GT categories – with Campbell – from Warwick in Queensland and, now in his second year in Europe, officially a ‘young professional’ for the German manufacturer – triumphant in GTE-Am for Hollywood actor Patrick Dempsey’s team.

Campbell was partnered in the 911 RSR by the team’s 39-year-old German leader Christian Ried and 18-year-old French rookie Julien Andlauer.

“This is perfect, it’s really a storybook ending, it’s a Hollywood movie ending,” American Dempsey, who was second in class as a driver at Le Mans in 2015, said of his trio relegating two Ferrari 488s to the lower steps of the GTE-Am podium.

Ex-Formula 1 driver and Grand Prix winner Giancarlo Fisichella co-drove the first of those Ferraris.

“I was blown away, constantly blown away because you expect a rookie to make some mistakes – but they just didn’t,” Dempsey said.

“Matt’s an exceptionally calm driver.

“But you have to remember that they’re champions in their own right. They didn’t come into this series by not winning races – they won races, and they won championships.

“So they know what they’re doing.

“They’re superstars right now and they just really blew on to the scene pretty profoundly today and it was really amazing to witness that first hand.”

A quinella in GTE-Pro made Porsche’s 70th anniversary celebrations even grander.

A ‘Pink Pig’-liveried 911 RSR driven by Dane Michael Christensen, Frenchman Kevin Estre and Belgian Laurens Vanthoor took those class honours ahead of another driven by Frenchman Fred Makoweicki, Italian Gianmaria Bruni and Austrian Richard Lietz.

Although Toyota finally broke its seemingly endless curse at Le Mans, the 388 laps of the 13.626km La Sarthe circuit the victorious TS050 completed, a total of 5,286km, was still nine laps short of the 397 by an Audi R15-plus TDI in 2010.

While Porsche and Audi are now missing from the prototype league and lots of grandstand seats were empty for much of the race, the crowd announced was still a thumping 256,900.

In taking the chequered flag Kazuki Nakajima became the first Japanese driver to win Le Mans in a Japanese car after having been at the wheel two years ago when victory eluded Toyota as an earlier model TS050 faltered with just a lap to go.

Five times before this year Toyota had finished second in the quest for the racing prize it most coveted.

“It’s great to be here finally – it’s been a long time coming!” Nakajima said.

“Finally, we finished without any issues.”

Spanish dual F1 world champion Fernando Alonso drove a brilliant long stretch in the winning car through the night and now has two legs of the Triple Crown he craves.

A two-time Monaco GP winner and now Le Mans victor, the leg missing from his CV is ultimate success in America’s Indianapolis 500 – to which he is likely to return either next year or in 2020.

The late British driver Graham Hill is the only one to have claimed the Triple Crown.

Alonso said that winning Le Mans at his first attempt was “an amazing feeling”.

“It’s a shame the 24 Hours of Le Mans only happens once a year – they should hold it every two or three weeks,” he said.

The third driver in the winning Toyota, which incurred two penalties during the race, was Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi.

The second TS050, two laps behind after a penalty in the penultimate hour for running a lap too long on a stint after missing a pitstop, was driven by Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi, Britain’s Mike Conway and Argentina’s Jose Maria Lopez.

Toyota team president Hisatake Murata said the Le Mans success “after so many frustrations and disappointments is a truly magical moment”.

“It has been our dream to win Le Mans and finally we have achieved it,” Murata said.

Toyota Motor Corporation president Akio Toyoda said the concept of kaizen, or continuous improvement, had been the reason for the company’s long overdue breakthrough.

“We are developing a road car from a race car competing in the Le Mans. Kaizen is ever-continuing – it is a common idea in Toyota and now racing team members also understand it is linked to victory,” Toyoda said.

Toyota boasted that this year’s TS050s used 35 per cent less fuel than in 2012, when it returned to endurance racing.

Swiss team Rebellion’s non-hybrid LMP1 cars finished third and fourth, but 12 and 13 laps down respectively, while the top LMP2 car – a G-Drive Racing Oreca07-Gibson in which Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, a one-time Red Bull junior contemporary of Australia’s F1 star Daniel Ricciardo – was fifth outright, but another six laps back.

The Ford GT co-driven by US-based Sydneysider Ryan Briscoe and the Porsche 911 RSR that Victorian Alex Davison co-drove were the third last and second last of the classified finishers, in 41st and 42nd places outright.

The G-Drive LMP2 car in which Queenslander James Allen was a driver was one of the 17 cars in the field that didn’t finish.

New regulations from 2021 for the World Endurance Championship, of which Le Mans is the centrepiece, were outlined during the weekend.

LMP1 will be replaced by an as-yet unnamed top category aimed at attracting hypercar manufacturers.

The race cars will resemble each manufacturer’s road car design, with costs aimed at being slashed to about a quarter of those now.

Several aspects of the design are open, including free engine architecture and the ability to run any number of cylinders with either a turbocharged or naturally-aspirated design.

The cars will have an overall weight of 980kg while weight distribution will be capped, along with a defined maximum fuel flow, controlled efficiency and other regulations to prevent expensive development.

An electric motor will be mounted on the front axle with a fixed performance of 200kW, giving the cars a four-wheel-drive layout, while the internal combustion engine’s maximum performance target is 520kW.

Each car will have two seats, a bigger cockpit than the LMP1s, a wider windscreen and a roofline more consistent with road cars.

Manufacturers will be required to make their hybrid systems available for privateer teams to lease at a capped cost, while any manufacturer or company can build its own hybrid system.
The regulations will apply until 2024-25.

“This will provide endurance racing with a long-term, stable platform, while continuing to offer a cost-effective stage to showcase future technologies,” Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) president Jean Todt said.