WINNING IS NO CERTAINTY FOR TOYOTA

Toyota has only triumphed in one of the two World Endurance Championship rounds so far this season. What’s more, it has only got a single car to the finish on both occasions. Yet the Japanese manufacturer still has to be favourite going into the Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend. Of course it does: it runs the only current overt manufacturer programme in the Hypercar class, it has the form at the centrepiece round of the series as it bids for a fifth victory in a row, and it has the best driver line-ups.

All those reasons stood last year, too, when the GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar finished 1-2 on the Circuit de la Sarthe in the first Le Mans of the new world order of sportscar racing. But any bookmaker with a keen eye on the WEC would surely give longer odds on the Japanese manufacturer this time around. There are multiple reasons for that.

The opposition in the Hypercar class, unchanged from last year, has proved its credentials. Alpine’s grandfathered LMP1 ORECA design was already a proven machine with two WEC campaigns under its belt as the Rebellion R-13. But the Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMH remained an unknown quantity when the WEC arrived at Le Mans for last year’s delayed running of the 24 Hours in August. Getting two cars to the finish in fourth and fifth positions and mounting a real challenge to the Alpine for the final spot on the podium showed that the team