Brendon Hartley thinks Toyota Gazoo Racing has a shot of winning the Lone Star Le Mans round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, despite the hefty Success Handicap penalties that have been placed on the pair of LMP1 Hybrids.
Hartley, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi will be starting third overall in the #8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid, behind the polesitting #1 Rebellion R13 Gibson and the sister Toyota, which qualified second.
Both Toyotas have been slowed by over two seconds at the fifth round of the 2019/20 season and have so far not been able to match the pace of the Rebellion. Speaking to Motorsport Week about his chances to beat the Swiss privateer, Hartley said:
I” think it’s possible. I mean, we saw in the last race, they also took pole position but as a team we were able to score another one-two. We think we may be better on tyre life, we know our pit crew are incredibly slick and if we do our perfect race and make no mistakes, we can challenge them.”
Hartley was one of the drivers to have qualifying duties on board the #8 Toyota, but notably made a mistake during his flying lap, pushing too hard and skipping wide at turn 19.
“We knew pole position was going to be a bit tough, in theory we should have been at least P2, I ran wide on my lap and we didn’t have a chance to do another qualifying lap, so we’re starting third,” he explained.
“From what we saw today and what we saw in free practice, I think we can challenge them and we think it might be a very exciting and tight race. We had a clean day in terms of free practice and putting everything together, so we think we can challenge them.”
Forecasts for the race at Circuit of the Americas in Austin suggest it might rain during the six-hour enduro. When asked if Hartley would prefer rain, he replied:
“Depends on where we are in the race. If we are leading the race, I would probably prefer for it to stay dry.
If we’re fighting to make a difference, then rain is always good. It brings a bit of opportunity, some drama and particularly having a four wheel-drive car, I think we’ll have an advantage in the rain.”
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