Overheating Engine Had Toyota Fearing Double Retirement

Toyota “really thought” that it might lose both of its LMH cars around midnight during the 24 Hours of Le Mans as the No. 8 machine’s engine started overheating at approximately the same time as an incident that took out the No. 7.

Damage to Kamui Kobayashi’s No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid after a multi-car accident in preparation for a slow zone knocked one of the Japanese manufacturer’s entries out after eight hours.

While that was going on, the No. 8 car of defending Le Mans winners Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa was having an issue of its own after running over a piece of material on the track.

“At that moment, we really thought we would lose the two cars because, at the same time, we had the engine temperature going sky high on the No. 8,” said Toyota’s FIA World Endurance Championship technical director Pascal Vasselon.

“We had no indication of what was happening. There was nothing visible from outside.

“The aero figures were good. We decided to remove the front end, change it and have a look.

“There was a big piece of Kevlar which was stuck inboard of the suspension but blocking the flow of the cooler. We could remove it and keep going. It was a big part.

“The reason why car No. 8 was delayed when Kamui had his accident is that we have been stopping several times to investigate the temperature issue. We lost quite a lot of time looking at what had happened.”

The No. 8 car had a second encounter with on-track debris later in the race at around 7 a.m. when Hirakawa ran over an animal that Vasselon described as a squirrel.

It wasn’t the only LMH car to incur damage in that sort of incident, as the No. 50 Ferrari 499P saw its hopes of a podium fade when a stone penetrated one of the radiators and caused a fluid leak in the 10th hour.

“There have been some windows where we were sometimes dominating Ferrari,” Vasselon reflected.

“Just after one of these moments where we were competitive, Ryo has hit a squirrel.

“It was probably not a very small one because it has done big damage to the front end.

“He has been in trouble until the end of the stint when we could change the front end.”

Despite hitting the Kevlar piece and the animal, the No. 8 Toyota continued to challenge the No. 51 Ferrari of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi.

It was briefly promoted to the lead by a slow pit stop for the Ferrari caused by a power cycle, but Pier Guidi fought back and overtook Buemi into the second Mulsanne chicane.

The Toyota drivers then started to struggle with the rear wheels locking in the closing stages which culminated with Hirakawa losing control of the car in the braking zone to Arnage. That incident gave the No. 51 Ferrari enough of a gap to secure the win.

“Towards the end of the race, when Brendon has done a quadruple stint, we were really entering a window where the car was performing,” said Vasselon.

“Sadly, we had a small contact against the tires at Arnage. The car had a bit of rear-wheel locking, clearly.

“There was a difficulty to manage [it]. And when you have to push, you raise the level of risks.

“It’s a very long list of frustrations. Because in the end, I’m always thinking about the debriefing with the team, but we had no mistakes except poor Ryo. He has been put in a situation which was difficult.

“The car was locking wheels. All the rest from the team’s side went very well. We had no reliability issues.

“The cooling issue we had on car No. 8, we handled in the best possible way when you have this kind of thing happening. Really no regret.”