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Toyota Achieves Bittersweet Third Place at Le Mans

Toyota started this year’s World Endurance Championship with a boom, taking the top spot in the first two races of the season. The team also got to start in pole position at Le Mans, but the bad luck following their cars struck again.
Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014 21 photos
Photo: Toyota
Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014Toyota TS040 at Le Mans 2014
First, the No.8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Nicholas Lapierre and Sebastien Buemi got caught in a multi-car accident during a sudden downpour and the vehicle needed urgent repairs, which took the pit crew around 50 minutes to complete.

Everything worked fine for a while, but as the race neared the 14-hour mark, disaster struck the other team’s car too. The No.7 race leader Toyota encountered some bad electrical problems and had to retire, as driver Kazuki Nakajima could not take it further down the track past the Arnage corner.

Luckily enough, No.8 was working fine even after the urgent repairs and its three drivers could to keep up a consistent pace. The car managed to reach into the top four as several other competitors had problems with their cars.

In the last two hours of the race, the No.8 TS040 had the chance to overtake another opponent and finish in third place, despite the team’s low expectancy.

“I was surprised to be standing on the podium. From not having been in the top 30 after the accident, to end up on the podium just goes to show the speed,”
said Davidson. “The win comes to you, not the other way around in this race.”

Overall, Toyota is still on the first place in the 2014 WEC, and the last podium finish is actually the fifth-in-a-row one for the team. The next leg will take place at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, but that will happen in September. Until then, we’ll get to see the TS040 race in the Goodwood Festival of Speed between 26-29th of June along with a collection of both contemporary and classic racing Toyotas.
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