The scenario was perfectly written. Toyota was going to win the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours, that was clear. The opposition, composed of very able and respectable privateers had no chance of victory, unless disaster struck.
The story read as follows: The Toyota TS050 #7 of Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez would go for the win, it was their turn to win after all, the sister car had won the 24 Hours race the year before.
The #8 car driven by Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima would finish second and the crew would be crowned World Endurance champions. That was the plan. The most important thing for Toyota was to score a brilliant one-two, no matter the order. We know what happened.
The #7 Toyota TS05 impeccably driven by Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez was heading to triumph with less than an hour to go when a puncture robbed the crew of a sure win and handed victory to the sister car. Alonso’s #8 car won the race with a small margin of 10 seconds over the #7 car, the others were miles away.
Celebrations appeared muted on the podium, everybody inside the team insisting the #7 car deserved the win.
Fernando Alonso declared : “We didn’t have the pace for this 24 Hours, we were not as quick as car no.7, and definitely didn’t deserve to win on-track. I feel bad for the drivers of the sister car.”
Pascal Vasselon, technical director of Toyota said the same thing : “The #7 car was quicker from the start of the race, they deserved to win, but the most important thing was that Toyota brought the two cars home and won the race and the championships.”
When I heard this I thought : if everybody feels bad, and anyhow the championship and the one-two was guaranteed to Toyota, mission accomplished, so why did the management not reverse the order and let the #7 car win ?
It was an easy thing to do, just 10 sec separating the two cars at the end, and without any risks, the competition being so far behind. It was also an elegant thing to do, and everybody would have celebrated this beautiful victory in style.
Or maybe, not everybody was sincere …
