De Vries Explains No. 7 Toyota Qualifying Elimination

Toyota driver Nyck de Vries has explained the circumstances surrounding the No. 7 GR010 Hybrid’s elimination from the first phase of 24 Hours of Le Mans qualifying.

De Vries was at the wheel of the GT-One retro-liveried Toyota for Wednesday evening’s Hypercar qualifying session, but ended up missing the cut for Thursday’s Hyperpole as he set the 17th-fastest time of the 21 cars.

The Dutch driver’s best effort of 3:25.062 compared to the benchmark of 3:22.847 laid down by Alex Lynn at the wheel of the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac.

It left the No. 7 Toyota, which de Vries shares with Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway, as one of six cars to fail to make Hyperpole along with both Aston Martin Valkyries, the two Peugeot 9X8s and the Proton Competition Porsche 963.

“Generally we are very much on the limit of  going through with a comfortable margin,” de Vries told reporters after qualifying. “We don’t have that comfortable margin.

“On my lap we had a yellow flag at the Porsche Curves with the Alpine, and on the second lap you lose the peak of the tires. I was still on a decent lap but I caught the other Alpine too quick, going into the last chicane. I caught him, I came close and I locked up.

“You’re never going to do the lap on the first run, so basically you just have one attempt on the second run. I think the first lap would have been comfortable, around P10 or P11. But obviously I caught the yellow flag so I had to slow down.”

Toyota’s No. 8 car qualified 11th in the hands of Brendon Hartley on a 3:23.988, more than a second slower than Lynn’s chart-topping time.

De Vries said he felt Hartley’s effort was representative of where the No. 7 car would have been had the second run gone according to plan.

“Around P10 or P11 was possible, but more than that, clearly not,” he said. “Brendon extracted the maximum on his first lap of the second run.

“In the first run, we were ninth and tenth, and I think that was our position if not the yellow flag and catching the Alpine at the end.”

De Vries went on to suggest that Toyota is also lacking pace over a race run, and not only a single lap, in relation to its Hypercar competitors.

“We haven’t been quick,” he said. “That will be our main priority and focus, because ultimately qualifying isn’t relevant for such a long race, as we saw last year starting from the back, but we need to somehow find pace for the race.

“At the moment, I don’t think we’re quick enough.”