The last edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was dramatic for Toyota. The TS050 #5 pulled out with a few minutes to go, with the victory unexpectedly falling into Porsche's hands.
The 2017 edition of the world's best known endurance race is just around the corner and Toyota, once again, is getting ready to fight for victory. The first signs are encouraging…
The only day of testing took place on June 4th, with two sessions of four hours each, before the official training sessions on June 14th. The test takes place on the weekend of June 17th and 18th.
And these first tests couldn't have gone better for Toyota. Not only were they the fastest, the TS050 Hybrid #8 and #9 were also the only ones to manage more than 100 laps of the La Sarthe circuit. Still, the fastest lap went to the TS050 Hybrid #7, with Kamui Kobayashi at the controls, completing the 13,629 meters of the circuit in 3 minutes and 18,132 seconds. The fastest Porsche 919 Hybrid was 3,380 seconds away.
Current WEC (World Endurance Championship) championship leaders Sébastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima, driving the TS050 Hybrid #8, achieved the second fastest time with a time of 3 minutes and 19,290 seconds.
Speed is not lacking in the new TS050 Hybrid, which reduced by five seconds the time achieved last year on the same day of tests. But, as Toyota learned the hard way, it's not enough to be quick. The cars have to withstand the entire 1440 minutes of the race. 1435 minutes is not enough...
