The consolation of being the fastest loser that year proved too bitter a pill to swallow for Peugeot and the French manufactuer withdrew its team from endurance racing at the end of that year. Peugeot’ s vacant slot on the grid was taken by Toyota Motorsport GmbH with its TS030 Hybrid, a machine that looked remarkably similar to the Peugeot cars it replaced. The qualifying sessions ahead of the big race suggested that Toyota was more than capable
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Above: Dramatic night shot of the AF Corse Ferrari 458.
Left: The Proton Competition Porsche at dawn.
of making a challenge on the previously untouchable Audi cars; was the unthinkable really about to happen?
Toyota Challenge
A successful foray in the qualifying saw Team Audi lock out the front row of the grid with its cars taking all top three slots. Toyota was just behind in forth and fifth and as the French Tricolour dropped to signal the start of the race, the new boys stayed glued to the leading cars.
Despite the complications caused by the numerous interruptions to the race, Audi’ s R18 e-tron Quattros got the upper hand and as the race progressed through the afternoon, the German cars maintained their position. The first twist occurred just as night was falling, when in less than five minutes, the No1 Audi( Lotterer-Fässler-Tréluyer), was pushed into its garage after being refuelled with an alternator problem. It seemed that the No3 car( Gene-Di Grassi-Jarvis) hadn’ t read the script either as it suffered a puncture. Oliver Jarvis took a big risk coming back to his pit at a spanking pace in his damaged car! After a wheel change he rejoined in fourth place. The No8( Davidson-Buemi-Sarrazin) and No7( Wurz-Lapierre- Nakajima) Toyotas took over second and third places in that order behind the No2 Audi in the lead. Toyota made the best tyre choices to cope with the wet track conditions caused by the