Toyota: Ferrari Still Favorite Despite Difficult Qualifying

Toyota maintains that Ferrari remains the favorite for a third consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans victory going into this weekend’s 93rd edition of the French endurance classic, despite the Italian manufacturer’s disappointing qualifying performance.

David Floury, Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe’s technical director, made the claim on Friday after a Hyperpole session that left the three Ferrari 499Ps seventh, 11th and 13th on the grid for the FIA World Endurance Championship blue riband event.

Best of the Toyotas was the No. 8 car in tenth, following a lock-up at Mulsanne corner for Sebastien Buemi in Hyperpole 2, while the GT One retro-liveried No. 7 machine will take the start from 16th after failing to make Hyperpole altogether.

Floury described Ferrari as the favorite for victory after last Sunday’s test day, a view he reiterated before Hyperpole on Thursday when he said he believed the Prancing Horse was “managing the situation” in first qualifying.

Looking back on Hyperpole, Floury told reporters: “I would have seen Ferrari stronger than this; I don’t know what happened to them to be honest.

“But I think Cadillac are strong in qualifying pace. Well done to them. They were strong in qualifying last year, so it’s not a big surprise.

“The general trend [with race pace] is a bit different from the grid from what I can see, but it’s quite difficult to analyze the performance in practice because the performance varied so much from one session to the next.

“I think we can expect the performance between the cars to vary during the race depending on tires, drivers and track temperatures.”

Asked by Sportscar365 if his post-test day assertion that Ferrari looks strongest remained his opinion even after qualifying, Floury replied: “I think it still holds for the time being. But I hope the race proves me wrong.”

Ferrari lost two of its three cars in Hyperpole 1 as Alessandro Pier Guidi qualified the No. 51 499P 11th, two places ahead of Yifei Ye in the satellite No. 83 AF Corse entry.

The No. 50 car was the only Ferrari to make Hyperpole 2, with Antonio Fuoco ending up over a second behind Alex Lynn’s pole-winning Cadillac V-Series.R.

Giovinazzi, who was due to take over the No. 51 Ferrari for Hyperpole 2, said Pier Guidi’s effort in the earlier session was a reflection of the 499P’s one-lap speed, but is hoping that the car’s race pace will bring it back into contention.

“Qualifying doesn’t mean so much here at Le Mans, but our competitors were faster than us,” Giovinazzi said on Friday. “This is for sure. We didn’t expect we would be this far, but saying that, we will keep pushing.

“The race pace is not bad. It’s not the best, but I hope it’s good enough to fight.

“Starting seventh, 11th and 13th is not a good position. But let’s see the temperatures first of all, because maybe it will be cooler than previous days, which were really hot, in terms of [tire] degradation.

“For sure we were pushing, and in a qualifying sim, not only Cadillac, but all the cars in front of us were faster than us.”

Giovinazzi pointed to Cadillac as the favorite for the race, saying he can’t picture the American marque struggling for long-run pace so much given its one-lap prowess.

“We knew already before coming here that Cadillac would be the car to beat, to be honest,” he said.

“We saw already that if you have a good car in qualifying, like we had at Imola and Spa, you can have a good car also for race pace. I don’t see that they will be on pole and that they will struggle [in the race]. I don’t see this.

“Cadillac is quite strong in the final sector, in high-speed sections. Then we have all the cars that are faster that are faster on a straight line. We are just there trying to survive.

“But in the race, with the tow, things can change a lot. I hope it’s like this.

“After a few hours of the race, going into the night, we will know who are the contenders.”