places to be after exiting the Porsche Curves.
Two laps were lost replacing the rear bodywork, only for the issue to be compounded when Fassler was deemed to have ignored a slow zone, resulting in a penalty. More delays for oil top-ups did nothing to help their cause and despite clawing back some ground to the number 17 Porsche, the gap would yo-yo exhaustingly throughout the remainder of the race.
Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi brought the number 8 home in fourth, albeit a lap behind their team-mates after Duval collected the barriers at Indianapolis during the third hour of the race during confusion over a slow zone signal at that sector.
Di Grassi felt the car wasn’t the same after the incident, with further insult adding to injury being incurred when they experienced the same bodywork issues as the number 7 car.
The fifth-placed (and pole-winning) Porsche of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb finished four laps in arrears after running into braking issues when Dumas collected the barriers at Mulsanne Corner a third of the way through the race; with Jani repeating the excursion just a few hours later.
Last year’s WEC champions, Toyota, weren’t even remotely on pace with Porsche and Audi at Le Mans, seemingly unable to even benefit from even the most unfortunate circumstances surrounding their main rivals.
Toyota’s flagship number 1 entry was an early casualty when Anthony Davidson collected a GTE car, damaging the front right corner. The incident caused handling problems with a further accident following soon after.
Quick work by the pit crew ensured replacement front and rear bodywork, plus new left rear suspension, was fitted, with the #1 losing 13 minutes and re-joining five laps behind the leader.
“We cannot be happy with this result”, said Toyota Team President, Toshio Sato, but claimed he was “satisfied with the professional work and dedication of the team”.
Race - 24 Hours of Le Mans