Floury: Toyota Had No Chance in “Two-Class” Hypercar Battle

Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury has described the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a “two-class race” in which the Japanese marque’s pair of GR010 Hybrids “never had the potential” to fight for victory.

Floury made the remarks after Toyota ended up with a best finish of sixth with the No. 7 car, with the sister No. 8 machine that had been the better-placed car for the majority of the race ending up down in 16th after shedding a wheel late on.

While the No. 8 car shared by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa ran second at the halfway point of the race, but the car had faded to fifth by the morning hours and looked unable to take the fight to Ferrari and Porsche out front.

Floury put Toyota’s lack of competitiveness down to a lack of straight line speed that he said meant there was no way the brand could have hoped to finish higher than fifth, before the problem that dropped the No. 8 down the order.

“On pure performance, there was no way we would compete,” Floury told reporters.

“There was never any potential. It was a two-class race: one with the cars with top speed and one with the cars with no top speed. 

“Unfortunately we got the wrong ticket and we were in the second class with Cadillac and Aston Martin.”

Toyota experimented with the usage of Michelin’s Soft tire during the evening and night-time hours, while most of its competitors stuck to the Medium compound.

Floury said he believed this was the reason why Toyota looked competitive during the night, only to fade again when the temperatures rose in the morning.

“I think the only time in the race where we were competitive was when we were not on the same tires as our competitors,” he said. “It’s a repeat of Sao Paulo, where we were dominant because of the tire strategy.”

On the front-left wheelnut issue that forced Hirakawa to limp back to the pits at low speed, ultimately costing the car seven laps an any hopes of a solid finish, Floury revealed that the regular tire changer had been injured during a previous stop.

However, he stopped shy of blaming the problem, which precipitated a 17-minute trip to the garage, on a slip-up by the replacement mechanic.

“He went to hospital during the night and he had to have surgery this morning,” said Floury. “This was not good news. I hope he will recover quickly. 

“After that, it’s not the mechanics’ responsibility, necessarily. It’s a combination of factors and we still need to analyze it more clearly.”

Toyota’s No. 7 car, which sported a retro GT-One livery to signify the marque’s 40th anniversary at Le Mans, suffered a troubled race from the outset as early contact gave the car bodywork damage, compromising its performance.

An off at Mulsanne corner for Kamui Kobayashi was then followed by a 50-second stop-and-hold penalty for exceeding the pit lane speed limit by 19 km/h.

Ultimately, the car that Kobayashi shared with Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway ended up the final car on the lead lap in sixth position.

“We wanted to stay out of trouble but at Turn 1 we were sandwiched and we picked up bodywork damage on both sides,” explained Floury. 

“It would have taken too long to fix, so we had to race with it. When you have holes in the bodywork, and you don’t know if the car will hold together or not, it’s not the best start. 

“After that, we had a lock-up at Mulsanne which pushed us to use some tire potential early in the race.

“Then we had a stop-and-go for speeding in the pit lane because during the driver change, the limiter was switched off.”