Toyota Gazoo Racing scored their third consecutive win in as many races in the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, and clinched their second one-two.
Meanwhile in the LMGTE Am category, 19-year-old Lilou Wadoux has become the first woman to score a class win in the World Endurance Championship.
Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez, and team principal Kamui Kobayashi drove a flawless race in the number seven Toyota GR010 Hybrid. The track was wet in the opening and Conway started the race from pole position on slick tyres. He struggled in the opening laps and lost several positions to drivers on wet weather rubber, but once the track dried out and he was able to put heat into his tyres, he retook the lead and drove away from the rest of the field.
From there, it was as simple as Conway passing the baton to Lopez, who then passed the baton over to Kobayashi, who brought the car home after six hours and 148 laps of racing. It’s their second win of the season and a much-needed recovery from a difficult Six Hours of Portimao, where the car suffered a drivetrain problem.
From 36th place on the 37-car grid (following the withdrawal of the number 56 Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR), the sister Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa, and Brendon Hartley finished in second place, to maintain their joint lead in the World Endurance Hypercar Drivers’ Championship.
Toyota’s closest brush with catastrophe was a close call in the final hour at the top of Raidillon, where Hartley rejoined after a pit stop on cold tyres just as Kobayashi was approaching. Kobayashi drove around Hartley in the run-off to avoid a collision. The number seven Toyota was given a five-second time penalty after the race for the out-of-bounds overtake, but that did not affect the final result.
Ferrari-AF Corse took the final podium position on the last lap as James Calado overtook Frederic Makowiecki’s Penske Porsche with a significant pace advantage. Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Antonio Giovinazzi in the number 51 Ferrari led the race early on when Giovinazzi took the start on wet tyres.
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Giovinazzi’s advantage on wet rubber only lasted until the first Safety Car intervention, when Claudio Schiavoni in the number 60 Iron Lynx Porsche 911 RSR spun off into the gravel less than ten minutes into the race. On the ensuing restart he was quickly passed and dropped down the order. Making matters worse, the Ferrari 499Ps had a nightmarish time trying to get…
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