The Japanese marque suffered its first WEC race defeat in more than two years at the Florida track as Alpine scored a first outright victory with its A480 grandfathered LMP1 car driven by Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere in dominant fashion.
In a race interrupted by three red flags, Alpine had built a lead upwards of one minute over the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa before the first stoppage, caused by Jose Maria Lopez’s crash in the sister #7 Toyota.
The French squad enjoyed a similar advantage when the race was stopped again due to lightning storms in the area, before it was finally abandoned in the closing stages.
Kobayashi, who shares the #7 Toyota with Lopez and Mike Conway, said the Balance of Performance for the Sebring Prologue test and race meant there was no way to realistically challenge Alpine.
“It was really tough, what they gave us with the BoP,” Kobayashi told Autosport. “We were not as…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Autosport.com – All – Stories…