After two seasons of finishing as a runner-up in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), Toyota might very well be the team to beat this season – judging by the Japanese manufacturer’s championship-leading performances in 2014 so far, and it’s dominance during testing for this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The two TS040 Hybrids, which are currently competing in the top category of endurance racing – LMP1, left the Circuit de la Sarthe on Sunday as the two fastest vehicles on the 13 km circuit, which comprises of both purpose-built track and public roads.
The Le Mans test day ended with the #8 TS040 of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Nicolas Lappierre topping the time sheet with a lap time of 3:23.014 and average speed of 241,7 km/h. Behind their teammates were Kazuki Nakajima, Alex Wurz and Stéphane Sarrazin in the #7 TS040 – just 0.142 seconds adrift at 3:23.156.
But with 12 wins over the last 14 years, defending champion Audi is by far the most experienced team when it comes to successful campaigns at Le Mans. Two of this year’s three R18 e-tron quattros were third and fourth fastest at the end of the test day.
Marco Bonanomi was responsible for the 3:24.453 in the #3 R18, with teammate Loic Duval also only marginally behind in the #1 R18. Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer were sixth fastest in the #2 R18.
Nudged between the #1 and #2 Audis was the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb. Despite a small fire restricting the Porsche’s running time to less than 20 minutes, it still managed a 3:24.692 lap time. The #20 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley.
The only privateer entry in the LMP1 category, the Rebellion Racing R-One of Mathias Beche, Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost managed a 3:31.700 lap time before crashing out of the session with just five minutes left.