Toyota Racing completed a successful at Le Mans in their only chance of the year to prepare the car on circuit for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Toyota’s two 2013-specification TS030 Hybrid cars both completed over 80 laps as the team focussed on their long runs, producing a combined total of 2,276km running for the team.
The #7 of Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima spent much of their day working on different aerodynamic set-ups for the combination of long straights, chicanes and sweeping corners, while the #8 machine of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi, Stephane Sarrazin worked on tyre and set-up evaluation.
Heavy rain overnight and in the morning left the circuit in very slippery conditions for Wurz and Sarrazin, who started the morning session. As the track dried out, the afternoon session allowed the teams to start testing with the intermediate Michelin tyres, drastically improving lap times.
The #7 car’s fastest lap was a 3:29.593 seconds, while the #8 set a time of 3:27.581 seconds around the Circuit de la Sarthe.
“It was a pleasure to be back on track at Le Mans but it was a quite difficult session with the weather conditions changing throughout,” said Davidson. “In the rain we worked on the set-up and we found a pretty good balance. I was happy with the lap times in those conditions, which were really tricky. Later in the afternoon I got back in the car and I’d been running in the dry for few laps to get a better idea of the balance of the car. Lap times were not a priority today the most important thing is to wait and see where we are in two weeks time.”
