Toyota takes record breaking pole at Le Mans 24-hour

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Toyota Racing’s Kazuki Nakajima set a new Le Mans qualifying lap record to put the #7 TS040 Hybrid in pole position for the 82nd running of the famous Le Mans 24-hour endurance race this weekend.

Toyota Racing arrives at Le Mans – often regarded as the world’s most demanding race for man and machine – with a 48-point lead in the World Endurance Championship after dominating the first two races at Silverstone in England and Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium. The new fastest lap by the Japanese driver lowered last year’s pole position time by more than half a second.

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Nakajima, who shares the #7 car with Alex Wurz and Stéphane Sarrazin, scorched around the 13.629km track in 3 mins 21.789 secs to record Toyota’s second pole position at Le Mans.

The feat highlighted the performance and efficiency of the 736kW Toyota Hybrid System – achieving the fastest qualifying time despite a 25 per cent reduction in fuel consumption compared with last year’s car.

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The #8 car of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi will start Saturday’s race from third on the grid.

This is the fourth pole position for Sarrazin who achieved the honour in 2007-09 and who has been runner-up three times, including last year. He praised the team for its work in setting up the #7 car and Nakajima for a “brilliant lap”.

“It is promising for the race because we feel so confident in the car,” he said. “We can push on every corner, every lap. Like that everything is positive. The race will be very long, we know that we have to be very calm and not attack it like a short sprint.”

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Toyota Racing is pushing the performance and economy limits of hybrid technology as it prepares to continue its winning streak with two wins from the opening two FIA World Endurance Championship races.

The team’s two all-wheel-drive TS040 Hybrid race cars will be searching for maximum outright speed while carefully conserving fuel and tyres as it targets victory against strong competition from Audi and Porsche.

The Le Mans 24-hour endurance race starts at 3pm (11pm AEST) on Saturday June 14.

After Le Mans, there are five more rounds in this year’s championship:

• Sept 20 Six Hours of Circuit of the Americas (USA)
• Oct 12 Six Hours of Fuji (Japan)
• Nov 2 Six Hours of Shanghai (China)
• Nov 15 Six Hours of Bahrain
• Nov 30 Six Hours of Sao Paulo (Brazil)

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