Cologne, Germany,
12
June
2021
|
22:44
Europe/Amsterdam

Tense qualifying for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

Summary

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing will start the 8 Hours of Portimao from second and third on the grid with its new GR010 HYBRID Hypercars after narrowly missing pole position in an exciting qualifying for the second round of the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).

Sunday’s race is a landmark event for Toyota which celebrates its 100th World Championship sportscar start since its Group C debut in the 1983 Fuji 1000km. Following a very competitive qualifying both cars are firmly in contention for another victory in Portugal on Sunday, having already won the season-opening 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps last month.

Spa winners Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, in the #8 GR010 HYBRID, left it late to take second place, just 0.094secs adrift of the #36 Alpine which set a pole position time of 1mins 30.364secs.

World Champions Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López will start the race from third place in their #7 GR010 HYBRID after a best lap 0.176secs from pole. WEC Hypercar debutants Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus will start from 11th.

A balance of performance adjustment for the GR010 HYBRIDs after Spa, which increased weight by 26kg whilst reducing maximum power and energy, meant the team faced competition from LMP2 cars at Portimao, in addition to Hypercar rivals Alpine and Glickenhaus.

The 10-minute qualifying session was an exciting affair, with positions changing regularly. Mike took the wheel of the #7 on new tyres but lost his first lap due to a track limits violation. Brendon used scrubbed Michelins in the #8 but could not challenge for pole. Mike’s second lap put him in second place.

With the minutes counting down, both cars quickly returned to the pits for new tyres and another attempt at pole position, setting up a tense finale. Brendon saved his best lap until the final moment, snatching second place from Mike, who did not improve his time.

With three of the four Hypercars within less than 0.2secs, Sunday’s eight-hour race, the first for WEC in Portugal, promises to be a close fight. The race begins at 11am local time, 12noon CEST.

 

Mike Conway (GR010 HYBRID #7):

“It was a very close session but I think I could have gone a bit quicker, so I am a bit disappointed. I didn’t quite extract the full potential. I wasn’t too worried by the track limits on my first lap because we expected the second lap to be quicker anyway. We pushed for pole by taking another set of new tyres but I couldn’t get them to work on the first flying lap; it seems to take us a bit longer to get them in the right window. On the positive side, we are ahead of the LMP2 cars, which makes the start of the race a little easier, and we go into the race knowing the car is competitive. The gap is very close so both cars have a great chance. We will fight at the front and push for the best possible finish.”

Brendon Hartley (GR010 HYBRID #8):

“We are still experimenting with our new Hypercar and we tried something different. On the first run we used scrubbed tyres because we saw in practice that the new tyres were struggling. We had a back-up plan in case that didn’t work, which was good because it didn’t work. That put some pressure on for my last lap and I feel happy with the job we did. It was good planning and team work to get on the front row. I think it was possible to get pole position because it was very close in the end but Alpine took it. Well done to them. It’s going to be a close fight in the race with the top three cars within two tenths so we have a long race ahead and on this track it’s going to be very tough with traffic. The LMP2s are not too far from us, so we have to be very focused, with no mistake or contact. Eight hours is going to be very long around here.”

 

Qualifying results:

1st

#36 Alpine (Negrao/Lapierre/Vaxivierre)

1min 30.364secs

 

2nd

#8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.094secs

 

3rd

#7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.176secs

 

4th

#28 JOTA (Galeal/Vandoorne/Blomqvist)

+0.846secs

 

5th

#38 JOTA (Gonzalez/da Costa/Davidson)

+0.891secs

 

6th

#29 Racing Team Nederland (v. Eerd/v.d Garde/v. Uitert)

+1.181secs

 
    

Free Practice 3 results:

1st

#22 United Autosports (Hanson/Boyd/di Resta)

1min 31.628secs

30 laps

2nd

#36 Alpine (Negrao/Lapierre/Vaxivierre)

+0.0024secs

34 laps

3rd

#38 JOTA (Gonzalez/da Costa/Davidson)

+0.137secs

31 laps

4th

#709 Glickenhaus (Briscoe/Dumas/Westbrook)

+0.288secs

33 laps

5th

#8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.346secs

36 laps

6th

#34 Inter Europol (Smiechowski/Deletraz/Brundle)

+0.370secs

35 laps

9th

#7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.682secs

29 laps

    

Free Practice 2 results:

1st

#22 United Autosports (Hanson/Boyd/di Resta)

1min 31.984secs

41 laps

2nd

#31 WRT (Frijns/Habsburg/Milesi)

+0.020secs

45 laps

3rd

#34 Inter Europol (Smiechowski/Deletraz/Brundle)

+0.067secs

48 laps

4th

#36 Alpine (Negrao/Lapierre/Vaxivierre)

+0.090secs

40 laps

5th

#28 JOTA (Galeal/Vandoorne/Blomqvist)

+0.191secs

48 laps

6th

#21 DragonSpeed (Hedman/Montoya/Hanley)

+0.614secs

39 laps

7th

#8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.685secs

41 laps

9th

#7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing

+0.737secs

43 laps

 

Press release

URL: https://toyotagazooracing.com/pressrelease/

 

Pictures will be uploaded here during the event

URL: https://www.tgr-dam.com