Floury: Tire Strategy Key to Toyota’s Dominant Victory

Photo: James Moy/Toyota

Tire management and strategy was key to Toyota’s victory in Sunday’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo according to Toyota Gazoo Racing technical director David Floury.

The Japanese manufacturer dominated the fifth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, with the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi taking top honors after staying entirely on Michelin’s Medium compound throughout the race.

Floury said this strategy was pivotal to their success, as nearly every other Hypercar manufacturer either mixed and matched the Medium and Hard tire options or rotated between the two different compounds over the course of the six-hour enduro.

The No. 8 Toyota won by more than 1 minute over the second-placed No. 6 Penske Porsche 963.

“We tested it back to back when the track was the hottest in FP2. We had a good picture before the race,” Floury told reporters post-race. “We worked on setup to make the Medium work and be consistent.

“I think the tire strategy and tire management was key today. The pace difference we saw was clearly quite linked to this as well.

“I saw a lot of exotic mix between Medium and Hard. It will be interesting to analyze post-race.

“We had only one tire spec all through the race because after that when you start having one time Medium all around, the next time Hard all around, after that one side Hards, the other side Mediums and the front Mediums, it looks a bit like a testing session.

“Obviously not all the combinations can work.”

It very well could have been a Toyota 1-2 finish, if for not fuel pressure issues for the pole-sitting No. 7 entry that resulted in a long pit stop in the third hour to replace the control box.

Floury admitted the No. 7 entry was the quicker of the two Toyotas, which came down to setup and tire management.

“It’s satisfying to win, especially after Le Mans,” he said. “Because Le Mans left a pretty bad taste. I would have wished we could have achieved a 1-2, which we deserved today.

“We cannot be 100 percent happy but it’s still a good result.”

Mike Conway, meanwhile, described the setback for his car, which was leading the race at the time after overcoming a drive-through penalty for a Full Course Yellow infraction in the second hour.

“I started to have a bit of a power loss in some corners,” he told Sportscar365. “Then on the in-lap it was like a big loss of power out of Turn 2 and it was never really accelerating properly after that.

“I think it came down to a bit of a fuel issue.

“Unfortunately we changed a part and we lost a lot of time with that. It was a shame.

When asked if it cost them the victory, Conway said “for sure.”

“Even with the drive-through I had, which was my mistake on the Full Course Yellow, I just didn’t slow down quite quickly enough, we got back in the lead within a couple of laps,” he added.

“The car was really good and had good pace, good tire wear, which I think was really key in the first part of the race.

“It was a great comeback and congrats to Car 8, they had a clean race.

“It was the one that got away from us.”

Hartley admitted that the race was “very hard” with tire management, particularly during his opening stint, which saw the team double stint his Michelin tires.

“We decided to do the double stint directly [at the beginning] and try to get it out of the way,” the Kiwi explained.

“But Car 7 was flying and they had less deg. I hit a wall. I fell off the cliff, so to speak.

“I was losing 2-3 seconds per lap on the second stint. We caught it early. That was the idea, to try and get rid of that pain but we were definitely a bit slower than Car 7 today.

“I’m sorry for them that they had the issue. But I’m pretty happy that we had a trouble-free race, we made no mistakes as a crew.

“I think we did a pretty good job to bring it home in first place.”

Jamie Klein contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John