Fernando Alonso has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Toyota on his début at the legendary race. The twice Formula 1 champion shared the honor with co-pilots Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi and took the title home on board the Toyota #8.

The battle of the Toyotas

For the first six hours of the race both of the TS050 Hybrids went head to head for the lead.

Car #7 of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José María Lopez was leading with a considerable margin at the seventh hour as a result of the time lost by Buemi in the #8 at the slow zones, according to Toyota. The margin between both vehicles then grew exponentially during the following hour as #8 was penalised with a 60 second stop/go penalty for speeding in a slow zone.

This was to be a turning point for Alonso and his team-mates, now 2 minutes away from the Toyota #7, who started to slowly shorten their distance in the early hours of the morning. During the five-hour stint, between 23.:00 and 04:00, that the Spaniard was at the wheel of the #8, he managed to take 4 seconds per lap out of Lopez on board the Toyota #7.

The following 2 hours were breathtaking. The #8 took over its team-mates from Toyota and continued accruing a solid margin at the lead. It wasn’t until the final quarter of the race however, that Alonso replaced Buemi at the wheel under a safety car, contrary to the #7, which made the strategic mistake of waiting for the safety car period to end in order to change drivers.

This was just the beginning of the end for the #7 which lost a lap after pitstop and later had to comply with two different 10 second penalties for exceeding the fuel allowance.

Toyota, the great winner

Toyota has been the great winner of this 2018 edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans after taking part in the legendary race for twenty years without much success. The Toyota Ganzoo Racing drivers dominated the race from beginning to end with their #8 and #7 cars finishing +14 and +12 laps ahead of the third classified respectively. The Japanese manufacturer can finally fill that special place in his trophy display cabinet for winning the toughest endurance race in the world.