Toyota Gazoo Racing came up short during last weekend's 4 Hours of Shanghai, finishing second and third behind the race-winning #1 Rebellion R13-Gibson. Brendon Hartley believes Toyota did everything in their power to take victory, but came up short.
The defeat marks the first time a Toyota did not cross the finish line first since the 2017 6 Hours of COTA, when Porsche took victory. Notably, that win was taken by Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley, who came up short in his third race for Toyota on Sunday.
“We did our absolute maximum and it was a strong team performance to get two cars on the podium," Hartley commented. "We had some nice battles with our LMP1 rivals and even the LMP2s because lapping those guys was tricky.
In the end, the Rebellion was quick and they didn't make any mistakes so they deserved to win the race. We did everything we could to put them under pressure but it wasn't enough.”
Toyota struggled with the straight line speed of the non-hybrid prototypes, but still managed to finish ahead of both Team LNT Ginettas, who were handed a drivetrhough penalty for jumping the start alongside the #7 Toyota.
“I am happy with today's race because we did a good job in general; I don't think we could achieve more than this," added Sebastien Buemi, who started the race for the #8 TS050 Hybrid. "We did the best we could and had a clean race; all of my team-mates did a great job, so I am pleased.
Congratulations to Rebellion on the victory. I hoped we would have an opportunity to fight with them but they didn't make any mistakes and we didn't have the speed.”
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