Toyota gets Dream start in WEC

After just two races, the Toyota racing team has clearly shown that they can battle with the big boys with their TS040 racecar, and have recorded historic consecutive wins at the 6 Hours of Silverstone and at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season.

It was a cloudy and windy day at the Silverstone Circuit, but that did not stop tens of thousands of fans coming out to witness the opening round of the World Endurance Championship. There was a 30-minute pitwalk session prior to the race that allowed the fans to get a closer look at the 2014 cars including the Porsche 919, Audi R18, and the Toyota TS040.

The race began at noon and it was an action-packed start to the 6 Hours of Silverstone. Just before the 3-hour mark of the race, the Toyota TS040 of Nicolas Lapierre was leading the race by 53 seconds ahead of the TS040 of Kazuki Nakajima to give Toyota the 1st and 2nd positions. Brendon Hartley was a distant third in his Porsche 919, and two laps behind him was Benoit Treluyer in the number 2 Audi R18. Unfortunately, the No.14 Porsche and No.1 Audi cars had crashed out and there were just four factory cars left in the LMP1-H category. There was also just one remaining LMP1-L runner and that was the No.12 Rebellion Racing Lola-Toyota of Nick Heidfeld, who was just 1 lap behind the Audi.

During the second half of the race, the final Audi car also crashed out in the wet conditions and the two Toyotas maintained their lead quite comfortably. The race was called off 25 minutes short of the full race due to the excessive rain and so Nicolas Lapierre, Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson won the race in the No.8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid ahead of their teammates in the No.7 entry.

The second round of the 2014 World Endurance Championship was held in Belgium at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit with 46,000 fans in attendance.  It was a tough qualifying session but the No.8 TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi held top spot until the final minutes of qualifying, where the number 14 Porsche 919 beat them narrowly to first place and as a result they had to start from second, while the second Toyota car started in fourth position. Once again it was a brilliant race and the No.8 Toyota TS040 took its second consecutive victory. Second place went to No.1 Audi R18 e-tron Quattro, and the No.7 Toyota came in third.

The next race in the series is the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, and it promises to be another action packed race with Toyota, Audi and Porsche all promising to make it a hard fought contest.