Toyota team wins Le Mans race
Toyota Gazoo’s No. 8 car comfortably won the 24 Hours Le Mans by five laps from Rebellion No. 1 on Sunday to secure a third straight victory in the prestigious endurance race in Le Mans, France.
It was also a third consecutive win for Swiss driver Sébastien Buemi and Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima driving. Brendon Hartley was the other driver, having replaced two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso.
Buemi and Hartley sat on the side of the car as Nakajima drove toward the podium. Hartley won for a second time after tasting success with the Porsche LMP Team in 2017 before an unhappy season in Formula One.
The Swiss team’s Rebellion No. 1 featured American driver Gustavo Menezes and Brazilian Bruno Senna – the nephew of late F1 great Ayrton Senna.
It finished one lap ahead of Toyota Gazoo’s No. 7, with Rebellion’s No. 3 finishing in fourth place.
For much of the race it looked like Toyota’s No. 7 would win after leading comfortably from pole position. But late into the night the car encountered an engine problem and the 30-minute stop in the stands proved costly.
The race was first held in 1923. A total of 252,500 spectators attended in 2019, but there were none this year when the race started three months late because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We miss the fans,” New Zealander Hartley said. “I look forward to seeing all the fans again.”
Toyota No. 7 took pole after former F1 driver Kamui Kobayashi narrowly edged out the Rebellion No. 1 team in qualifying.
In damp and humid conditions Mike Conway got away cleanly from the start, while Senna held off Buemi.
After nearly seven hours, Toyota’s No. 8 fell back after a 10-minute stop in the stands to fix a brake-cooling problem on Kazuki Nakajima’s car. Rebellion’s No. 1, driven by Frenchman Norman Nato, took advantage to move into second place behind Toyota’s No. 7.
Then came the decisive moment at 2:40 a.m. as the No. 7 – also featuring Argentine José María López – encountered a turbo problem.
“We had a few problems early in the race,” Nakajima said. “Later they had a bigger issue than us.”
NASCAR: Kevin Harvick steamrolled his way into the second round of the playoffs by holding off Kyle Busch In the Bass Pro Shops Night Race on Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway for his series-best ninth victory of the season in Bristol, Tennessee.
Harvick denied the reigning Cup Series champion his first win of the season when he took the lead a little more than 100 laps from the finish and held off every challenge from Busch the rest of the way. Busch furiously tried to catch him as the two weaved their way through lapped traffic, but Harvick held firm in the No. 4 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing.
Only six cars finished on the lead lap in a tepid event at the 0.533-mile bullring revered for bumping and banging. Track officials sold all 30,000 tickets allowed – making Bristol one of the largest sporting events since the pandemic – and the spectators crowded the fence as Harvick celebrated.