Toyota insists it is not the “quickest” despite topping Le Mans test day

Brendꦫon Hartley downplays Toyota’s pa💛ce ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours.

#8 Toyota
#8 Toyota
© XPB Images

Brendon Hartley insists Toyota does not ꦿhave the “quickest car” over long runs at the Le Mans 24 Hours, despite setting the fastest time in Sunday’s official tes꧒t day.

Hartley posted a 3m26.246s lap in the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid he shares with Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa, 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:placing th🍸e Japanese manufacturer on168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: top of the timesheets at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

The performance marked a notable improvement from last year’s test, when Toyota finis🎉hed third and more than seven tenths adrift of the benchmark time set by Porsche.

Toyota has been granted a maximum output of 520kW below 250km/h under the latest 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Balance of Performance changes, the joint-highest figure for any LMH or LMDh car heading into the centrepiece round of t♌he World Endurance Championship.

Despite the headline lap time, Hartley was cautious about📖 Toyota’s prospects of securing a sixth Le Mans victory, pointing to the fierce competition in the Hypercar field.

“I think we🐬 are feeling positive after a successful day with no major dramas,” he said.

“I had a goo🎐d feeling with the car, and I think Ryo and Seb did too. Clearly the competition is fierce, and on long runs I wouldn’t say we look like the quickest car, but I feel like we are in the fight. We have some work to do next week.

“Hopefully g🌌et some good sleep in the n🌳ext nights, recharge and be ready for the big job to come.”

Hartley’s teammate Bꦇuemi also expects a number of other cars♕ to be in the mix in the 93rd edition of Le Mans.

“I always enjoy coming ba🌟ck to this circuit; it’s a real pleasure to drive a Hypercar around here,” he said.

“And of course, it’s nice to set the fastest lap obviously – but there are a lot of fast cars out there.
📖“We did a lot of laps, made some changes which were good, others which were less so🌄, but that’s part of the process. We will analyse everything and see where we can improve.

“Plus, the weather conditions might be a bit different next week, so we need to get ready to adapt to that as w🧜ell.”

With teams typically focusong on long runs and optimising the set-up on the test day, instead of chasing outright performance, Hirakawa underlined that Sunday's times don’t offer a clear 𓆏picture of the competitive order.

“It was quite a busy day, as expected, with a lot of things to test and all the different slow zones, ♋full course yellows and red flags,” he said.

“We got what we wan🅺ted out of the 🐼day, so it has gone well. It’s always nice to be fastest, even though it doesn’t mean anything at this stage.

“The car felt really good but still we have a lot of things we can improve s🅷o there should be more to come. We have to analyse the data over the next two days and prepare the best we can for race week.”

Th♉e sister #7 Toyota crewed by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries ended up 14th in the overall classification, more than two seconds down on the #8 LMH.

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