General
De Vries balks after second place in Le Mans: 'We were so close'
- Ludo van Denderen
So close, yet ultimately so far away. While Ferrari celebrated victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Toyota mourned a missed opportunity. Just 14 seconds short of beating Ferrari in the French city, the Japanese team came up short after a 24 hours of bad luck, slips, a drive through penalty and technical problems (in the last stint).
Nyck de Vries spoke afterwards of an "extremely tough" edition of Le Mans. The Dutchman finished on the podium for the first time at the most important endurance race of the year. "It was an incredible race, with such close competition in such difficult conditions. It feels like we were so close yet so far to achieving our target. Nevertheless, it was a strong performance from the whole team, and we finished on the podium, which is a special moment for my first Le Mans with Toyota," said De Vries.
Buemi frustrated
The #7 Toyota with De Vries, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez started the race last and thus climbed to spot two. The other Toyota car finished the race in P5. It could have been better results, but the car was tapped off the track by the #51 Ferrari two hours before the end - driving in second place. A catch-up race then awaited, which did not have the desired end result.
"I am a bit disappointed to finish fifth to be honest," said Sebastien Buemi, one of the drivers of the #8. "We were leading the race for a long time and without the incident late on I think we could have won. We had strong pace and didn’t make any mistakes so it’s frustrating how it turned out," said the Swiss driver, who is also currently a sim driver for Red Bull Racing.