In the red cloud of Ferrari, which won at Le Mans with the 50 and made the podium with the 51, there is the Toyota number 7 of Kamui Kobayashi, José Maria Lopez and Nyck De Vries, which was last on the starting grid while on the the finish line came just thirty seconds after the winners. And in a Le Mans where great feats and incredible work are talked about, credit must also be given to the Japanese team
ANDThe trio from Toyota no. 7, made up of Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck De Vries and Mike Conway, were ahead of everyone in Imola. Three drivers who not only proved to be more competitive than the sister crew of number 8, but also on the grid, where they always found themselves in the top positions. The victory in Imola then put concrete confirmation on their business card and, in view of the 24h of Le Mans, they were identified as one of the most dangerous crews for victory, along with the championship leaders of the No. 6 Penske Motorsport Porsche and the two Ferrari 499Ps. And Toyota really believed in this undertaking, so much so that already in the first rounds of the WEC they said they were preparing everything in view of Le Mans. However, the weekend didn’t start in the best way for them, on the contrary, chaos reigned supreme.
Indeed, Le Mans week opened with the news of a serious injury for Mike Conway, one of the standard bearers of number 7, which occurred on a bicycle during training. The Briton thus had to give up the most important race of the championship and the real possibility of winning it – perhaps replicating the perfect execution that led him to victory in 2021. In his place came José Maria Lopez, former teammate of both Conway and Kobayashi, who at the beginning of the season had stepped aside to allow Nyck De Vries to race with the GR010 Hybrid. However, although the Argentine is at home and knows the car very well, preparing a 24h of Le Mans in just a few days is not at all simple. Lopez was still ready for the race because he would have had to face it at the wheel of the Lexus in the GT3 class, but readjusting to the pace of the premier class, especially with such a level of competition, is never easy.
Con Nyck De Vries who was tackling his first 24h of Le Mans in the Hypercar class, therefore in the most important one of all, and who in the WEC he is finding redemption for the last season spent in Formula 1, Kamui Kobayashi wanted to reconfirm himself as one of the strongest in the endurance world. In qualifying, however, the Japanese made a mistake entering one of the most difficult corners of the La Sarthe circuit, causing a red flag. If the time recorded a few laps earlier was enough to allow him access to the Hyperpole and, above all, an assured start in the Top 10, the race direction immediately arrived with a penalty for the fact. All laps for car number 7 were therefore cancelled, as it was disqualified in some way from the session, as per the regulations.
However, if there is someone who thrives on determination and readiness to solve problems within the WEC paddock, that someone is precisely the great team that Toyota Gazoo Racing has assembled in recent years. They who are now veterans of the category have not given up and, given that anything can happen at Le Mans, the objective was victory even from the back of the grid. The sister car started a few rows ahead, but in their case too, qualifying had been more of a disappointment than a satisfaction, so for the reigning world champions everything had to be rewritten. And they committed to doing so from the first moment, with a clean start that saw the number 7 out of trouble, with precise and fast stints despite the comings and goings of rain and sun and the complicated lapping conditions, with LMP2 and GT3 equally engaged in very tense battles.
UOnce the night was over it became loud and clear that Kobayashi, De Vries and Lopez were also in the game for the victory, especially after the battle that saw the Japanese and the Ferrari driver Antonio Fuoco as protagonists. The two sought and challenged each other to complete perhaps the most iconic duel of this year’s 24h, won in the end by the Italian’s 499 P if we also count the strategies and the various accidents along the way. Ferrari took an incredible, emotional and deserved victory, but immediately behind them was the Toyota number 7. And in a race as complicated as this year’s, we must also tip our hats to the Japanese manufacturers, authors of a masterpiece that started from the rear.
On the podium De Vries, Kobayashi and Lopez waste no time in congratulating the winners, who certainly demonstrated more perfection than them. They smile at each other, hug each other and Kamui Kobayashi shakes hands with Antonello Coletta, director of Ferrari’s endurance department, with so much admiration that you can read it in his eyes, perhaps even a little damp from tiredness and the satisfaction of having finished the race of races once again. In a year where the word competitiveness is equivalent to World Endurance Championship, the result obtained by Nyck De Vries, José Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi says much more than millions of words. They will no longer be first in the league, the unbeatable ones of previous seasons, but they are still one of the most solid teams in the world of motorsport.
