Toyota has won Le Mans for the fourth time in a row

Toyota took a one-two finish in the first Le Mans 24h of the new Hypercar era, making it four wins on the bounce for Gazoo Racing. It was the #7 car piloted by Brit Mike Conway, ex-F1 star Kamui Kobayashi and Argentine José María López that finally took victory though, after years of near misses and heartbreak. Legends.

The reigning WEC world champions started from pole in the pouring rain on Saturday and had completed 371 laps by the time the chequered flag fell on Sunday. The #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley finished two laps down, with the #36 Alpine (essentially an old Rebellion LMP1 car) taking the final spot on the podium.

The race wasn’t without incident for either Toyota – the #8 car was at the back of the pack after the first lap having been hit by one of the Glickenhaus Hypercars, the #7 suffered two punctures and both cars had to navigate a fuel system issue in the latter stages.

Last lap drama in the accident-filled LMP2 class saw Robin Frijns, Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg take victory in the #31 WRT, snatching the win from teammates Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz after the Chinese youngster ground to a halt with less than half a lap to go. Devastating. Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael in the #28 JOTA were 0.7 seconds behind the sole finishing WRT after 24 hours.

In LMGTE Pro, the #51 Ferrari 488 of AF Corse beat the #63 Corvette C8.R by only 42 seconds, and the Italian team also took victory in LMGTE Am. A decent day’s work for AF Corse.

Thoughts on the race, folks?