Toyota’s Spa weekend began in the worst possible fashion on Thursday when Kazuki Nakajima suffered a fractured vertebra during a heavy practice accident with Audi’s Oliver Jarvis.
Kazuki remains in hospital in Verviers recovering from the fractured vertebra sustained in the high-speed accident, but is in good spirits and focused on returning to the cockpit as soon as possible.
As a result of Kazuki’s accident, the #1 crew worked tirelessly to change the monocoque in time for qualifying, giving Anthony and Sébastien the chance to prepare for qualifying , but with both practice sessions taking place in heavy rain, the team had no information about dry-weather set-up ans subsequently had a busy final practice to get ready for qualifying and the race.
“We did the best we could and we will see what tomorrow brings; there is not much more to say. We were slower in qualifying than the competition which is not a surprise, but we are further away than expected”, said 2014 WEC World Champion Sebastien Buemi.
With a larger-than-expected gap to Audi and Porsche at Spa, the race was an exercise in damage limitation for Toyota, but even that mission proved to be problematic for the 2014 Manufacturers Champions.
While Alex Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway (in the #2 TS040 HYBRI)D managed to hold fifth position, World Champions Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi suffered technical problems and finished eighth.
“This has been a tough event for us. We wanted to get a much better result, particularly for Kazuki”, said Toyota Gazoo Team President, Toshio Sato.
“Like in Silverstone, we have shown a lap time improvement compared to last year but it has not been enough to challenge Audi and Porsche who have done an impressive job. Congratulations to Audi on a hard-fought victory. We will conduct a detailed investigation into the technical problems as well as the gap to our competitors. We will work flat-out and concentrate on the development of our Le Mans-spec car.”
Toyota sit third in the manufacturers’ standings on 47 points with Alex, Stéphane and Mike are the leading TOYOTA drivers also sitting third in the overall standings,