Toyota Gazoo Racing has made changes to their driver line-up for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The reason for the changes is because Jose Maria Lopez got injured at Silverstone, and thus couldn’t participate in the 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps. By that, he lost a lost of driving time behind the wheel, and Toyota has taken the consequences of that.
In car number 7 we will have Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi as usual, and they will be joined by Stephane Sarrazin. Sarrazin was also a teammate of Conway and Kobayashi in 2016, but stepped down from the full season LMP programme this year. He raced the #9 at Spa where he instantly did very competitive times.
Car number 8 will have the usual line-up of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson, and Kazuki Nakajima. They will try to get revenge for the win that got away last year, only three minutes from the flag in the heart breaking finish to the race.
Car 9 will see Nicolas Lapierre and Yuji Kunimoto like at Spa, but they will have Jose Maria Lopez in the car.
The plan is for Lopez to get back in the #7 after the Le Mans race, but 6 Hours of Nürburgring clashes with Formula E in New York, so it’s unlikely for the Argentinian to be in the car for that race.
Le Mans will start with a test day on June 4th, before the race itself is run on June 17th-18th.