The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) Round 1 Sebring 1000 Miles Race qualifying was held on Thursday, March 17 at the Sebring International Raceway in Florida, USA, and the two cars of TOYOTA GAZOO Racing were in a tough battle. GR010 HYBRID will start tomorrow’s race from the 4th and 7th grids.
The effect of the performance adjustment (balance of performance) changed for the opening round was clearly shown in the result of the qualifying shortened by the red flag.
GR010 HYBRID No. 8 driven by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa was in charge of the qualifying attack by Hartley and was 4th overall with a time of 1’49.217. Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez’s No. 7 car finished in 7th fastest time with Lopez’s attack.
The qualifying ended as it was when the LMP2 vehicle crashed in front of the checker and a red flag was displayed. As a result, the two GR010 HYBRIDs that were in the attack lost the chance to further update the time, with rival Alpine in pole position, Glickenhaus in 2nd place, and LMP2 vehicle in 3rd place overall.
The GR010 HYBRID won the pole position 5 times out of 6 races last year, but this year, the operating speed of the 4-wheel drive mode in which the front wheels are driven by an electric motor was limited by performance adjustment, so this is the 6th time. It was expected that the fight to the pole position that was aimed at would be tougher.
However, Lopez and Hartley fought with all their might to start from the top of the qualifying session, which was held in the setting sun in Sebring, the birthplace of the endurance race in the United States.
Hartley set his fastest time on the first attack lap after entering the course. After that, he continued to attack for two laps, and on the lap just before the checker, he was expected to update the time in the first sector and improve the ranking, but the red flag issued by the crash of the LMP2 vehicle just before the end of the session made that hope. Did not come true and stayed in 4th place.
Lopez waited for a while from the start of the session and entered the course, but on the first lap of the attack, he lost time due to the congestion on the course. The last attack lap, which set the time in the subsequent laps, was blocked by the red flag and ended in 7th place.
It was a disappointing qualifying for Toyota, but the team switched their consciousness to optimizing the strategy in the final race, which will be held as a long run for 8 hours tomorrow (Friday), and won 7 consecutive races in GR010 HYBRID. It aims to.
Jose Maria Lopez (Car 7 driver)
The last lap went pretty well and I thought it was about 5 seconds faster, but the red flag came out. Without the red flag, I would have been in the higher grid, probably the top four, but the result isn’t that much different. I didn’t participate in the pole position battle, but I think the damage was minimal. The final race is long, so focus on doing a clean race. If all goes well, you may be able to aim for a podium or even more results.
Brendon Hartley (Car 8 driver)
I didn’t get much grip and it was a difficult qualifying because I slid. I overspeeded in the final corner and lost a few seconds of commas, but otherwise it was a clean attack lap. However, it was not enough to aim for pole position. In tomorrow’s race, we have to fight as clean as possible. It’s an endurance race and I don’t know what will happen, so I’ll keep fighting.
WEC Round 1 Sebring 1000 Miles Official Qualifying Results (Overall Ranking)
Category: Category: F1 / Toyota / WEC (FIA World Endurance Championship)
