How Toyota’s sole survivor turned the tables at Spa

To lose one victory in the World Endurance Championship when you are the only major manufacturer in class might be regarded as misfortune. To lose two in a row would probably be deemed careless. Toyota avoided that fate at Spa last weekend despite a first mechanical retirement for one of its prototypes since 2017 and everything the Ardennes weather gods could throw at the field.

Toyota led the majority of the way through a race interrupted by three red flags, six safety cars and five Full Course Yellows and wasn’t headed in the Hypercar class beyond early in the second hour on a day that neither Alpine nor Glickenhaus put together a consistent challenge. But to suggest that race winners Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez somehow had it easy aboard the winning Toyota GR010 HYBRID would be both unfair and downright disrespectful.

The conditions for much of the middle hours of the Spa 6 Hours were treacherous in the extreme. And that first retirement since Le Mans 2017 meant that all the Toyota eggs were in one basket.

Lopez conceded that he had it easy: the Argentinian driver didn’t have to run in full wet conditions - he only ran on intermediates and slicks. Yet he reckoned that from the sanctuary of the team’s pit garage the race made for difficult viewing.

“Watching the inboards and hearing the radio from the garage was really tough,” said Lopez, who completed a 27-second victory over the Alpine-Gibson A480 after taking over for the final 80 minutes. “There were points in the race where Mike and Kamui looked like passengers in the car; there was so much aquaplaning, it was extreme at times. To watch from outside, it was like a horror movie.”

Conway, who started the race in the winning Toyota, didn’t disagree: “Some of the wet running was really treacherous, a lot of standing water, just hard to keep it on the road. It was really tough, but we hung in there, didn’t make any mistakes, and that was key to victory.”

Unpredictable weather made conditions hazardous for teams

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director Pascal Vasselon described the victory at Spa — the marque’s sixth in a row at the Belgium venue — as “important one for the team”: “Losing once is OK, but losing twice is too much.”

The hybrid system failed on the sister GR010 shared by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, the exact problem remaining unexplained in the immediate aftermath of the race. The car led in Buemi’s hands to the first round of pitstops and into the first sequence of stoppages just after the one-hour mark.

The safety car had been sent and then the reds shown when Miroslav Konopka clashed the ARC Bratislava ORECA LMP2. When the race restarted just over 20 minutes later, the #8 Toyota struggled to get away from the queue on the start/finish straight. There was a problem with the hybrid system and after one recycle of the car’s system before he got away and another on the Kemmel Straight, he was asked to pull over and retire the car before the completion of one lap.

“We knew there was a severe problem,” explained Vasselon. “We tried to mitigate it, but it was not possible. In the end it was a terminal problem.”

Derani couldn’t hear properly when he was asked if he wanted slicks or cut slicks, meaning inters. The intermediate Michelin only came on stream at the Le Mans 24 Hours last year and Derani wasn’t aware of its availability. He thought he was being given the choice between slicks and wets

Buemi had led Conway by five seconds after the first stops. The Swiss had made it past the pole-winning Glickenhaus with Olivier Pla at the wheel after 15 laps, Conway following him through a lap later.

The Toyotas and the pole-winning Glickenhaus appeared evenly matched at the beginning of the race; Pla in the American car was only briefly more than a second clear of Buemi. But as the only fully dry stint of the Spa 6 Hours wore on, it was Toyota that had the more consistent car. Pla, who shared the 007 with Pipo Derani and Romain Dumas, fell away from the Japanese cars to the tune of 10s before the pitstops.

Thereafter, the Glickenhaus was quick in the wet, but a real handful in mixed conditions. That much was evident on the first lap after the restart. Pla, along with Andre Negrao, went off at the Bus Stop on a damp track — the rain had arrived during the red and the surface was quite wet in places.

Glickenhaus shone in the wet, but a botched tyre call cost it valuable ground

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

The pace of the Glickenhaus in the wet meant it was still in the mix in the middle of the penultimate hour. Derani was less than 10s down on the remaining Toyota, and just ahead of the Alpine, when an FCY brought the cars into the pits on a drying track. The Toyota and the Alpine went to intermediates, but the Glickenhaus was sent out slicks. Two laps later, it was back in for inters. The botched call and the car’s struggles on the drying track resulted in the 007 completing the race down in ninth place, behind six LMP2s.

Luca Ciancetti, technical director at Glickenhaus, described the mix-up as “complicated”. The radio on the car was malfunctioning and Derani couldn’t hear properly when he was asked if he wanted slicks or cut slicks, meaning inters. The intermediate Michelin only came on stream at the Le Mans 24 Hours last year and Derani wasn’t aware of its availability. He thought he was being given the choice between slicks and wets.

It wasn’t a bad weekend for Glickenhaus overall, though. Pla had claimed the marque’s first WEC pole, though Toyota had compromised its pace in qualifying by opting for the harder of the two Michelin compounds: it wanted a full allocation of the more durable tyre for the race because it reckoned consistency would be its strongest weapon. That at least partially explained why the GR010s ended up third and fourth, Kobayashi just ahead of Hartley, behind Matthieu Vaxiviere in the Alpine.

“In the dry not too good, not too bad, in the wet good and in intermediate conditions very bad,” was how Ciancetti summed up the team’s day. “This is what we had today at Spa. It was not a perfect performance.”

The 007 did race the brake-by-wire system that it tried in practice at Sebring in March. But Ciancetti reckoned the improvement it should yield has yet to be fully unlocked, though he is not predicting that it will result in a giant step forward.

The Alpine couldn’t match the Toyotas or the Glickenhaus in the dry after its Balance of Performance hit in the wake of its Sebring 1000 Miles victory. The car was running with 20kW or 26bhp less horsepower at Spa. But second place was a decent result, reckoned Negrao, given the conditions.

“We got the job done today,” said the Brazilian. “This car has always struggled in the wet; the traction control we have is not the best. We’ve made a step forward in the rain, but against Toyota and Glickenhaus we had no chance.”

Had it stayed dry, Toyota would probably won this race anyway. The Glickenhaus wasn’t good enough on its tyres and the Alpine, with the latest BoP, not quite quick enough. If it wasn’t already, Toyota is now very much favourite for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez got their title defence underway after Sebring DNF

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WRT back to its best in LMP2

WRT might have claimed second and third first time out this year at Sebring, but it wasn’t quite the force around the Florida airfield that it had been at the back end of 2021. But at Spa last Saturday the Belgian team was back to its imperious best on home turf.

It wasn’t so much that the team notched up a 1-2 at the end of the six hours that was so impressive. Rather it was the performance of the winning ORECA-Gibson 07 shared by Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns and Rene Rast. They led the class for 67 or the 103 laps on the way to a 34-second victory ahead of the sister car driven by Rui Andrade, Norman Nato and Ferdinand Habsburg. More to the point, Frijns led the race for 26 laps from the end of the second hour into the fourth.

Gelael put in probably his best WEC performance yet; he appeared to benefit from tests at Spa and Monza since Sebring after WRT airfreighted the #31 ORECA back from Sebring rather than waiting for the boat. The Indonesian ran second to the first stops (behind Antonio Felix da Costa in the #38 Jota ORECA), and again to the initial stoppage (behind Lorenzo Colombo in the Prema car).

Rast T-boned the spinning car and damaged the nose of the WRT ORECA, but it was too late in the day to have any effect on the outcome

The car moved into the lead when the safety car that followed shortly after the resumption brought the field into the pits in ever-heavier rain. The car was on wet-weather Goodyears already and the seconds gained by not changing tyres when the others did allowed Frijns to take over the lead. After a second red, he was able to pull away, extending his lead to as much as 15s.

The only hiccup for the winning crew came in the closing stages when the Ultimate ORECA spun right in front of Rast on the exit of the Bruxelles hairpin. The German T-boned the spinning car and damaged the nose of the WRT ORECA, but it was too late in the day to have any effect on the outcome.

As dominant as WRT was, it did enjoy some good fortune. It would have won anyway, but what happened on the front straight during the initial red helped Frijns get into the overall lead. Gelael had picked up a left-front puncture just before the stoppage. The rules allow teams to switch to wets, but not to change a single slick for another. It forced WRT’s hand into going to wet earlier than everyone else.

There were any number of cars that might have deprived the second WRT of the runner-up spot but for hard luck stories. The United Autosports ORECA shared by Josh Pierson, Alex Lynn and Oliver Jarvis flew in the wet in Lynn’s hands, but its race unravelled with a broken door catch. When Jarvis took over at the second attempt, he had to do so via the passenger side.

Two moments for Phil Hanson at the Bus Stop - one when he got bottled up behind the Toyota as it struggled on inters on an increasingly dry track — almost certainly cost the car he shared with Filipe Albuquerque and Will Owen the runner-up spot. The #38 Jota car recovered to third in the hands of Will Stevens after Roberto Gonzalez struggled in the wet.

#31 WRT ORECA led outright for a time in Frijns' hands and took LMP2 class honours with Gelael and Rast

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Ferrari splashes to GTE Pro victory

Ferrari wouldn’t have got a look-in at Spa had it remained dry. But the great leveller that arrived in bucket loads from the sky and streaming rivers from the hillsides allowed it to claim a victory that was both a shock and highly dramatic. James Calado had to hang on at the end around a track with a clear dry line in the face of a stern challenge from Porsche and Michael Christensen.

Alessandro Pier Guidi had qualified the winning AF Corse-run factory Ferrari 488 GTE Evo eight tenths from Porsche driver Gianmaria Bruni’s pole. That was admittedly much closer than the two-second deficit first time out this season at Sebring in March. Ferrari reckoned it still had no chance in the dry after the off-season Balance of Performance reset that followed the introduction of a new biofuel from TotalEnergies.

After 20 laps, Pier Guidi was the better part of 10s in arrears of Kevin Estre in the Porsche 911 RSR with which Calado would be duking it out five and bit hours later. The rain changed everything, though not before Pier Guidi lost the better part of a lap at the first red flag. He got it back courtesy of the wave around at the second red and when conditions were pretty much at their wettest was able to move past Christensen for second early in hour four.

The leader at this stage was the second AF Ferrari of Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco, which owed its position at the front of the field to gambling for wets on the grid during the first red.

Pier Guidi pulled one of the mammoth shifts for which he has become renowned: he only handed over to Calado with 80 minutes left. The Brit moved into the lead when Fuoco stopped for a splash along with Christensen under FCY conditions with an hour to go.

Christensen made it past the second Ferrari with 25 minutes left and charged up onto the back of the Calado car. The Porsche was showing its superiority on slicks around a track with a clear dry line. But over the 10-minute sprint to the flag, Calado somehow hung on.

Porsche was easily faster in the dry, but wet conditions opened the door for Calado and Pier Guidi to win GTE Pro in the #51 Ferrari

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“I gave it more than 100%, too much actually, but I didn’t want to give up,” said Calado. “I nearly crashed the car three times on the last two laps.”

The Corvette shared by Tandy and Tommy Milner did get back on the lead lap, but an extra driver change to put Milner back in the car at the end because he hadn’t completed the minimum drive-time put them back again

Calado reckoned the last FCY was crucial. He suggested the car would have needed a splash without it.
Christensen conceded that the Ferrari was quicker in the wet over the full duration of a stint. His efforts to overtake at the end were stymied, he said, because he was unable to stay flat in the Ferrari’s slipstream through Eau Rouge, robbing him of the traditional passing opportunity at Les Combes.

The Chevrolet Corvette C8.R was again in the mix, but lost a full lap at the first red flag. Nick Tandy’s pitstop had been delayed after the safety car came out, which meant he had to come in under the red that quickly followed. That came with a full one-lap penalty. The car shared by Tandy and Tommy Milner did get back on the lead lap, but an extra driver change to put Milner back in the car at the end because he hadn’t completed the minimum drive-time put them back again.

Bruni sustained a puncture at the exit of La Source on lap one after a side-by-side contact with Estre, after the Frenchman overtook him with locked-up brakes. Bruni and Richard Lietz lost a lap and never got it back on the way to fifth.

Contact at the start between the two Porsches resulted in a puncture for Bruni's pole-winning #91 car

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Priaulx, Tincknell and Ried top GTE Am

The Proton Dempsey team made a pair of tactical calls in the final stages of the Spa 6 Hours that yielded victory for the Porsche 911 RSR shared by Harry Tincknell, Sebastien Priaulx and Christian Ried. One without the other probably wouldn’t have been enough for the car to beat the TF Sport Aston Martin that took the chequered flag a scant second and a half behind in the hands of Marco Sorensen.

With an hour and 20 minutes of the race to run, Tincknell took over the car from Priaulx and was given the soft-compound Michelin. Just over half an hour later, the team opted not to bring him into the pits during the penultimate Full Course Yellow. That leapfrogged the car into the lead — the team opting for what Tincknell described as the “fuel marathon“ - and then the soft tyres proved crucial after the final, last-gasp FCY.

Tincknell used the softs after taking over the car from Priaulx to scythe through up to third place behind the NorthWest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE driven by Nicki Thiim, David Pittard and Paul Dalla Lana and that TF car that Sorensen shared with Ben Keating and Henrique Chaves.

Sorensen leapfrogged his former factory team-mate Thiim in the pits and was right with the Porsche when the yellows flew for one last time. Tincknell was struggling as his softs went way against an Aston that was on the harder of the two Michelin compounds. The last FCY was crucial because it allowed the Brit’s rubber to cool down.

“The pace was really strong until it really started to dry out and the soft tyre started to degrade,” explained Tincknell. “I went from thinking this is a 40-minute victory drive, to we are in trouble now. Not only did the last FCY help with the fuel, but it also cooled the tyres down. It was win or fence. I tried to pull away when the tyres were cool and managed to get four or five seconds.”

Sorensen reckoned the win was on for TF but for the late VSC.

“We would definitely have had a better go at it but for that,” he said. “He could really switch his tyres on when it went green.”

Thiim was two seconds behind the TF Aston in third position at the end of the race.

British pair Tincknell and Priaulx celebrate GTE Am victory with team boss Ried

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images