The No. 8 Toyota of Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso win the Le Mans 24 Hours and the 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship.
Rob Leupen’s objective was, is, and will always be simple: Win Le Mans. As the team director and Toyota Motorsport vice president, he plays a key role in both the day-to-day and long-term strategy of Toyota’s European racing operations. And his second 1-2 finish at the 87th 24 Hours of Le Mans in as many years means he did his job.
The major fumble of the race was the No. 7 car had a tire puncture, which forced an extra pit stop. That is a shame, though, because the 7 car, driven by Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez, and Kamui Kobayashi, controlled the race for the first 23 hours. Alas, it was the No. 8, driven by Sebastien Buemi, Fernando Alonso and Kazuki Nakajima, that won the race for the second year in a row.
The night before, about eight hours into Leupen was much more cautious about the race, “I have to be careful what I say, but it’s been better than expected,” Leupen said of the race thus far, “we didn’t expect these lap times at the moment, at this early stage, but it’s going very smoothly at the moment. We have to careful saying that because then the next corner something happens.”
The day before the race, Leupen had a very different point of view, when asked about Toyota’s chance of winning against the non-hybrid competition, he said, “We should be dominant, from that point of view. But accidents, weather changes, this has had big influences in our past seven years here…my feeling is, in ’16 and ’17, we were racing ourselves not so much against the competitor and made our own mistakes. Partly by preparation. Partly by not having the right luck at the right moment, which you need to be able to manage if you’re experienced. That is where we sometimes failed.”
Now with two wins under his belt, will Leupen feel more relaxed before the race? Probably not. But watching the man’s point of view change in real time as the race unfolded was amazing to see.
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