Toyota records double in 1,000 miles than Sebring

Struggling in the playoffs at Sebring on Thursday (Ferrari No. 50 finished first), the Toyotas made up for that in the race on Friday, dominating nearly 1,000 miles from start to finish. Passed into the lead after less than ten laps when the Ferraris decided to take advantage of the safety car in the aftermath of the Ferrari 488 n° 83 accident of Richard Mille AF Corse, the GR010s never left the top two.

With the speed of racing and being careful not to make any mistakes or receive penalties, unlike their competitors, the Japanese prototypes managed to unravel their points quite calmly and take their 11th victory in Hypercar since the category was created in 2021, in 13 championship rounds. On the finish line, it is No. 7 (Kamui Kobayashi – José Maria Lopez – Mike Conway), in particular thanks to one stop less, which is 2 “168 ahead of its sister, No. 8 (Sébastien Buemi – Brendon Hartley – Ryo Hirakawa), without being There will be a duel between them, even if they stay close for a large part of the race.

Peugeot 9X8s finish at 26 and 98 laps

The struggle for the third step of the hypercar podium was much more exciting and involved Cadillac, Porsche and Ferrari. Finally, it was the #50 Ferrari 499P (Antonio Fuoco-Niklas Nielsen-Miguel Molina), which started out on top, who took that precious third place, two laps behind the untouchable Toyota. It was ahead of the No. 2 Cadillac (Richard Westbrook – Alex Lane – Earl Bamber), which settled for a moment on the provisional podium, the two Porsche 963s, No. 5 (Dane Cameron – Michael Christensen – Frederic Makweki) and No. 6 (André Lotterer – Kévin Estre – Laurens Vanthoor) and the No. 51 Ferrari (Alessandro Pier Guidi – James Calado – Antonio Giovinazzi), who lost the chance to do one better after crashing into their GTE Am car after six hours of racing.

The Peugeot clan is worried about its fourth race in this category. It would be almost too long to list them all, but since the formation lap, 9X8 n° 94 (Loïc Duval – Nico Müller – Gustavo Menezes) has been forced to pit. The rest of the race was much the same, as the No. 93 (Jean-Eric Vergne – Paul di Resta – Mikkel Jensen) was also affected by mechanical problems.

In total, the #93 spent just over 50 minutes in the pits, while the #94 spent over three hours due to a problem with the hybrid system. In the end, they finished last in class, at 26 and 98 laps, even being beaten by the No. 4 Vanwall of Tom Dillmann, Esteban Guerrieri and Jacques Villeneuve, 8th at 24 laps. The last Hyper, Glickenhaus No. 708 (Romain Dumas – Ryan Briscoe – Olivier Pla), was forced to retire after less than three hours of racing.

Doriane Pin on the podium in LMP2

In LMP2, the racing was intense and close, as it often is, and with an hour and a quarter to go, five cars were still standing at less than a minute. At the end of the eight-hour race, the No. 48 of Hertz Jota (David Beckmann – Yifei Ye – William Stevens) won, also finishing seventh overall, 863” 2” ahead of the No. 22 of United Autosports (Frederick Lubin – Philip Hanson – Filipe Albuquerque) and 31”998 ahead of the No. 63 of Prima Racing (Dorian Bean – Mirko Bortolotti – Daniil Kvyat). Alpine’s best, No. 36 (Matthieu Vaxivière – Julien Canal – Charles Milesi) was ranked ninth in this category.

Finally, in the GTE Am class, the podium consists of the No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette (Ben Keating – Nicholas Farone – Nicky Catsburg), 17th overall, the No. 77 Porsche 911 of Dempsey – Proton Racing (Christian Reed – Mikkel Pedersen) – Julien Andalauer) and the No. 57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 (Takeshi Kimura – Scott Huffaker – Daniel Serra).