HOW THE ‘WRONG’ TOYOTA WON LE MANS… AGAIN
Another Le Mans 24 Hours and another Toyota victory in the face of no factory opposition. Yet the 88th edition of the great race was different from the previous two in which the Japanese manufacturer triumphed, and not just because there weren’t any spectators at the rescheduled event.
The pair of Toyota TS050 HYBRIDs were swung into their pitboxes for repairs over the course of a race that didn’t provide the flat-out internecine battle of 2018 or 2019, two Le Mans in which they didn’t see the inside of the garage. One thing was the same as 2019, however: the quicker of the two cars didn’t win.
Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima notched up their own hat-tricks to go with Toyota’s trophy-keeping three in a row, while Brendon Hartley, the replacement for Fernando Alonso alongside them, added to his 2017 triumph with Porsche. Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez, meanwhile, were left wondering what they have to do to win the double-points round of the World Endurance Championship.
The #7 drivers had victory ripped from their clutches 15 months ago with an hour left of a race in which they’d held
