Interview: Nicolas Lapierre on his factory Toyota deal

Q. What does it mean to land your first factory drive in sportscars?

Nicolas Lapierre: When you start your career, you want to get to Formula 1; that is the dream of every young driver. If you move to sportscars, then the dream becomes driving for a factory team. That's why this is so important for me.

Q. How important was your time with ORECA, driving its own LMP1 chassis and then the Peugeot 908 HDi?

NL: I had three very good years with ORECA and made a good improvement as a driver. Single-seater racing is completely different to sportscar racing. I had to understand about strategy, looking after my tyres and being a team player. I learnt those things with ORECA, and now I feel I am ready to drive for a factory team.

Q. Do you think the victory at last year's Sebring 12 Hours helped you seal the drive?

NL: We had some wins before with the ORECA P1 car and the Peugeot, but not a big one like Sebring. It is an important race, so I am sure that helped me land the deal with Toyota.

Q. Did you have any discussions with Peugeot about 2012?

NL: There was an obvious connection with Peugeot. They knew everything that I was doing because they had all our data. Contact was made, but I thought the Toyota project was more exciting. It is a new project and it is good to be in at the beginning of what is a big challenge. If I had gone with Peugeot, I would have been just one of nine drivers, but joining Toyota means I will be doing all the tests with the new TS030 HYBRID and be much more involved in building a new project.

Q. How important was ORECA in helping you land the deal given that they will be supporting Toyota in 2012?

NL: The only person I spoke with was Pascal [Vasselon, Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director]. I knew Hugues [de Chaunac, ORECA team boss] was working on something, because he is always working on something. I had no idea what it was and I don't know if ORECA's deal was done already when I signed, but I am sure that Pascal and Hugues talked about me. I don't think it affected the decision so much because I know that Toyota looked at all the lap times from the past two years and who crashed and who didn't. I was surprised at how much information they looked at.

Q. Is this a long-term deal for you?

NL: I know Toyota will always produce a strong and competitive car, so as long as they stay in sportscars, I would like to stay with them.