Toyota Gazoo Racing today gave the firmest of signals to its competitors of its desire to conquer the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Japanese team, and two of its Japanese drivers, secured the front row of the grid for this weekend’s third round of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship race, and smashed the qualifying lap record to bits in the process.
Aston Martin, Ferrari, Ford, Corvette and Porsche produced a battle royal in LMGTE Pro, with the British marque coming out on top with pole and a new qualifying record as well.
- Kamui Kobayashi of Toyota Gazoo Racing produced a stunning lap in the No.7 TS050 HYBRID to set a new qualifying lap record (for the current track configuration) of 3:14.791. This smashed the old record of 3:16.887 set by Porsche’s Neel Jani in 2015 by 2.096s! Kobayashi starts the race with Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin.
- The No.8 Toyota of Kazuki Nakajima, which the Japanese driver will share with Sébastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, will share the front row of the grid for the start of the 85th after a lap time of 3:17.128 placed it in 2nd place.
- Just one tenth of a second behind was the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Lotterer-Jani-Tandy who will share the second row with their team mates in the No.2 entry – the latter having to finish the day’s running prematurely after pulling off track as a precaution due to increased engine temperatures.
- The third row will be filled by the No.9 Toyota TS050 of Lapierre-Kunimoto-Lopez and the ByKolles Racing ENSO CLM -Nismo of Webb-Kraihamer-Bonanomi which recorded a fastest lap in the hands of the Webb of 3:24.170.
- Advertisement - 
