Sebastien Buemi gets first run in Toyota TS030 as team completes endurance test
Sebastien Buemi had his first run in Toyota's TS030 Hybrid Le Mans car as the team completed a 30-hour endurance test at Paul Ricard across Thursday and Friday
The Red Bull Formula 1 reserve driver joined team-mates Hiroaki Ishiura, Alex Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima at the test.
"It was nice to discover more about the endurance racing environment," said Buemi. "I have been in the driving simulator at TMG so I had an idea of what to expect but the reality is always a bit more complex.
"From a technical point of view the car is very impressive although we still need to make progress in some areas, which is normal at this stage of testing.
"I did some long stints and learned about new aspects of endurance racing, like driving at night, managing fuel consumption and adapting my driving style. I can see that every detail is important in order to be fast in this discipline."
Hisatake Murata, the team's hybrid project leader, said the test had been a valuable experience.
"This was the first time we have run the Toyota Hybrid System - Racing over such a long test session so we never expected a trouble-free week and we did experience a few issues, but nothing major.
"Thanks to a large amount of data and the detailed feedback of all the drivers we have a lot of information about how the THS-R powertrain behaves. We have been able to use this already to refine our systems and before the next tests we will work more on some of the issues raised."
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