Toyota's luck at Le Mans

[Rodger]

I have been watching the Le Mans 24 hour race which finished at 3pm (European time) today.
LM is called an endurance race but in reality is a 24 hour sprint with the top cars reaching 200mph a three different points on the track. Porsche, Audi and Toyota battled for the whole time with Audi being the first to succumb to the pressure... The Porsches and Toyotas fought it out, most of the time being less than a minute apart, but as the race drew to a close the leading Toyota stretched the gap to 1 minute 19 seconds with three minutes to go (or one more lap) and over the radio the driver reported a loss of power and the car ground to a halt. Porsche swept into the lead and the win and, although the stricken Toyota got going again was not classified as it could not complete its full cooling down lap (rule 10.15). Porsche 1st, Toyota (a different one) 2nd, Audi 3rd.
These guys had driven over 5200kms in 24 hours and were excluded from the results all for the sake of 2 minutes!
The race Toyotas are, like the Audis, 4WD and use a 6 cylinder turbo hybrid motor.
Ford on the other hand won their class to celebrate 50 years since the GT40 first won at Le Mans.
Desperately bad luck and yet another year passes where the win eludes them.

 

[Shayne]

Maybe if you send them this to toyotas development team they will work out where it all went wrong

https://www.landcruiserclub.net/com...the-officially-accepted-fording-depth.145887/

 

[Chas]

My God is it really 50 yrs since the GT40 won at Le Mans?

 

[Rodger]

Yes Chas, 50 years since their first win but then they also won in '67, '68 and in 1969. I was there in 66 for the 'dead heat'. 'Was amazing.
The great thing about the design of the Ford GTs this year is the obvious 'homage' to the original GT40 design. They look really good but to my ageing eye, not as beautiful as the original GT40s.

This is very worrying... I have just realised I must have a thing about '40s'!! And in my case I don't think it's curable!

Reagrds

 

[Chas]

I do remember that dead heat, although it wasn't actually official, wasn't there something about their starting position that made it not a dead heat?
And yes they were, still are gorgeous cars,

 

[Rodger]

That's right Chas. Back then the drivers used to run across the track, unless your name was Jackie Ickx who always walked, at the start and, although the cars were level crossing the finish line, the car that started further back down the grid (determined by qualifying times) was deemed to have travelled 20 yards more in the 24 hours and so was declared the winner. But Ford made good use of the photos of the 'dead heat' over the years. Wasn't it Fords who originated the phrase 'Win on Sunday, sell on Monday'?

 

[AndyCook]

Camped at a site At Le Mans tonight, had no idea the race was on until we saw lots of sports cars heading north the opposite way on autoroute. Luckily the site had a few spaces left for us !