Toyota was ‘never in the fight’ at its nightmarish home race

Photo: Javier Jimenez/DPPI

Toyota was “never in the race” at its home race in the FIA World Endurance Championship in Fuji, believes David Floury, because after a disastrous race for both GR010 hybrid teams on home soil, the Japanese brand’s title hopes in the drivers’ championship were hanging by a thread.

The title-fighting No. 7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway was forced to retire with irreparable damage after Kobayashi collided with Matt Campbell's No. 5 Penske Porsche 963 in the penultimate hour.

Hopes of at least a podium finish for the No. 8 car were dashed in the final hour when Ryo Hirakawa received a drive-through penalty for ignoring the blue flags, dropping him, Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley to tenth place.

The No. 6 Porsche team took a near-unassailable lead in the championship with the win at Fuji, but Floury, Technical Director of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe, believes the team would not have been able to fight off its rivals on pure performance.

“We were never in combat,” said Floury. “In general, we lacked performance.” In terms of lap time, we were slower than our main competitors.

“If you look at it, Porsche, Cadillac, BMW and Alpine are all significantly faster. So our natural position was around P9, P10. We were put under pressure by all means to gain a position and in the end a podium place was taken away from us.”

In an attempt to get back into contention, Toyota decided to get the No. 7 car's “splash” – which would otherwise have happened at the end of the race – out of the way early, with de Vries completing an additional half stint in the fourth hour.

At the same time, car No. 8 followed the strategy of staying out as long as possible to completely avoid the “splash”.

But the virtual safety car that was called out in the fifth hour when the Lamborghini SC63 broke down on the track, followed by a full safety car, ultimately put both cars at risk and caused the No. 7 in particular to finish further back.

“After two and a half hours, we realized that we had no chance and that if we didn't try, we would be completely out of the race,” Floury explained.

“We decided to split the strategies between both cars to ensure that one had the 'lucky ticket'. But unfortunately the safety car came at the wrong time for both cars.”

Kobayashi admits he can’t handle “pressure” well

Looking back on the incident that forced the No. 7 car out of the race and occurred shortly after the final restart in the fast left-hand corner of Turn 3, Kobayashi took responsibility.

Although the Japanese driver believes in hindsight it would have been wiser to let Campbell's Porsche go, he admitted he felt the “pressure” to fight his way to the front to try and keep Toyota's title hopes alive ahead of Bahrain.

“The situation with the No. 5 car repeated itself for several laps,” said Kobayashi. “To be honest, the timing was bad and none of us wanted to give in.”

“As I was going into the corner I realised there was going to be a collision and I tried to avoid it, but I was completely on the ground. [inside] Curb and my front right [car No. 5].

“The difference in performance and weight [with the Porsche] due to the balance of performance was obvious, and looking back I should have just given up the position. But then we probably would have finished ninth.

“I knew it would be difficult to win the championship if we didn't score a lot of points. And I think I didn't manage the pressure of that situation well.”

Although Kobayashi took full responsibility for the accident, he felt that Toyota would have no chance in an open battle against Porsche or the other LMDh brands fighting for a top result at the end of the race, namely BMW and Alpine.

“Not only Porsche, but all the LMDhs were overwhelmingly quick, both in terms of tyre consumption and pure power, so we couldn't get any further,” he said.

“Honestly, on the last double stint, I felt like everyone else suddenly got faster. It felt like people were starting to show their true pace. At that point, I realized we didn't have the pace we needed.”

Floury annoyed by Hirakawa's last-minute penalty

After Kobayashi's accident, Toyota was still able to salvage a podium finish on home soil with the No. 8 car, with Hirakawa in third place with less than 30 minutes to go.

That was until he received a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags as the No. 6 Porsche of Kevin Estre closed in on Hirakawa, who had made his final pit stop several laps earlier than his main rivals.

An angry Floury contested the penalty on two grounds – firstly because he felt Hirakawa should have been allowed more time to pass Estre before being penalised, and secondly because Estre had forced Hirakawa off the track when he overtook him at Turn 15.

“When there is a blue flag, you obviously get a penalty if you ignore it for two sectors,” said Floury. “We had a blue flag for the first time in Turn 8 [the long right-hander towards the end of the second sector] and he [Estre] pushed us off course in turn 15.

“We left him space to pass and he hit us, pushed us off the track and we get a penalty… I would like to understand that because obviously I didn't see the same action. [as the stewards]. There will be quite a lot this season.”

Jamie Klein is Sportscar365's Asia editor. Japan-based Klein, who previously worked for Motorsport Network on the Motorsport.com and Autosport titles, covers the FIA World Endurance Championship and SUPER GT, among others.