Everyone should want Toyota to win Le Mans 2017

When it comes to storytelling you can't beat a protagonist overcoming trials and tribulations to ultimately triumph, most likely in an against the odds situation, to send everyone home with smiles on their faces.

Given the events of last weekend at Le Mans, and several similar stories of defeats snatched from the jaws of victory from that great race over the past two decades, the time has come for Toyota to get the prize that continues to elude it. Everyone should want it to happen in 2017.

The Toyota Le Mans saga already had a rich enough history that at 10 to three in France on Sunday afternoon, it appeared to be heading to a well-deserved conclusion. The race report introductions were already written: "Toyota finally broke its Le Mans hoodoo..." was a fantastic story.

The Japanese firm was about to get the ending its tale deserved, and the ones that got away in the past - take your pick from the 1990s or even as recently as 2014 - made what we were witnessing feel even more special.

Then, with the Autosport team at the track preparing to see out the last few minutes of the race after - you guessed it - 24 hours of unbroken live coverage - the leading #5 Toyota appeared on the Mulsanne Straight at cruising speed.

"That's brave," we thought. The leader slowing down at the end of Le Mans is not alarming in itself, but the traditional celebratory final tour tends not to take place when the two leaders are both still on the lead lap. Had Porsche - following a late unscheduled pitstop due to a puncture on its chasing #2 car which it admits made it give up hope of victory - officially called off the chase and told Toyota?

Then the crucial signs: Kazuki Nakajima was travelling well below top speed, but on-screen data from the car suggested he was at full-throttle. Our eyes widened when the 'radio' graphic appeared, and that haunting "No power" message came from the cockpit.

In the heat of the moment, trying to convey the magnitude of what was going on to the thousands of people following Autosport Live, beyond the sheer shock factor, it was hard to take in the utter heartbreak in the Toyota garage. It sounds harsh now, but we were staring into those haunted eyes trying to look for any giveaway signs of emotion. Most didn't crack.

Watching it back the next day, without the pressure of relaying every detail to an audience in an instant, it was painful to watch. Those people did not deserve to have cameras in their faces at that point, and it's remarkable how well most kept their composure.

The same couldn't be said for those in the Porsche garage, which erupted with joy when the drivers and crew stood watching the finish realised what was happening. Porsche has been criticised by some for a lack of sportsmanship in the way it celebrated, but it should in fact be applauded for what was clearly an absolutely genuine outpouring of emotion.

If you've ever competed in a 24-hour race, simply reaching the finish is an achievement worth celebrating. After racing flat out for victory from the start and being handed it in unexpected circumstances less than 10 minutes from home - in the biggest round-the-clock race of them all - it's no surprise the drivers' initial reaction was to throw themselves to the floor in disbelief rather than take a moment to consider making sure they looked dignified on TV. Give me genuine emotion over PR savvy any day of the week.

Le Mans is the biggest deal in sportscar racing - just ask Toyota. It won the World Endurance Championship in 2014, but all anyone remembers from that year is that it didn't win Le Mans when it had the fastest car. That just makes it hurt even more. When Lewis Hamilton lost the Monaco Grand Prix in 2014 and '15, in the end it didn't matter because he got the big prize at the end of the year. It doesn't work like that here.

Look at it this way: Porsche took its 18th overall win at Le Mans this year, while this was only the fourth time in the 21st century that an Audi has not won the race, and the first time in that timeframe that it has been defeated two years in a row.

Toyota has 14 starts as a factory entrant at Le Mans to its name, and what does it have to show for it? Four second places, the latest of which came from its #6 car on Sunday after the #5 entry was thrown out of the results for completing its final lap too slowly.

Even when it completes the full race distance, not only does Toyota miss out on victory, but it is scratched from the record books as well.

Were it not for the #5 car's plight, Audi would have experienced failing to get a car on the Le Mans podium for the first time in its history at the race. If this was a movie script, and this year's race certainly had a Hollywood feel about it with Brad Pitt giving the race start (and to his credit, sticking around to witness the momentous finish the next day), Audi and Porsche would be the big-shot high-achievers, most likely painted as villains in the back story to Toyota's woe.

In real life, which in this case served up something better than a scriptwriter could have, Porsche and Audi aren't the bad guys. But they remain part of the mountain Toyota has to conquer.

Before this year, the closest Toyota had got to leading across the line at the end of 24 hours was 80 minutes from the finish in 1998, when a gearbox failure ruined its hopes. When 23h50m passed in the 2016 event and the #5 car continued to lead, by this time clearly having the measure of the #2 Porsche giving chase, it didn't feel like there was jeopardy around the corner.

Jokes were cracked that Toyota had 'won' the Le Mans 22 Hours before, and the team was not counting any chickens before they hatched. Even though Porsche had admitted defeat once the #2 car pitted near the end, its victory celebration T-shirts, bizarrely sporting the term "Finally 18" (win number 17 only came a year ago, so this was literally the first opportunity to reach 18) were still probably closer to hand than anything Toyota might have had prepared. It is in awe - perhaps after the events of this year that will become fear - of this race, and as the clock ticked down, it knew it could still get bitten by the event it craves success in so much.

There's a bit of an old-school feel to Toyota at Le Mans - the team goes about its business at Le Mans differently to its German rivals. While all the major manufacturers - including the GTE behemoths - ramp up their presence at the track every year, there's something a bit more low-key about the way things feel around the Toyota camp. It was only this year, for example, that its paddock base and hospitality moved on from the awning-and-truck set-up to a semi-permanent structure, still dwarfed by some of the buildings other major carmakers erect at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

While some teams - and this does not just apply to the LMP1 manufacturers - surround themselves with security armies, and you won't get near them unless your name is on the right piece of paper, or you are wearing the right wristbands having received previous approval, Toyota remains more open, more approachable.

The other teams are often warm and accessible enough once you've been given the nod by the right person, but it still makes the paddock feel less welcoming than it once did.

Toyota's repeated failure at Le Mans is a fascinating story, but after so long it just becomes a narrative of endless defeat. It's unlikely to top 2016 for drama in terms of missing out (unless it manages to crash out of the lead on the final lap), so there are not many outcomes that can take this captivating relationship between a manufacturer and a single event to another level.

Only redemption in the form of returning to win the race in 2017 will give 'Toyota at Le Mans' the ending it deserves.