Toyota has ‘no possibility’ of 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans pole
Toyota pole at Le Mans not on the cards, says No. 8 driver
Brendon Hartley believes his No.8 Toyota GR010-Hybrid has no hope of fighting for pole on Thursday for the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Toyota endured a difficult evening at Le Mans on Wednesday in the opening qualifying session, after the No.7 car - driven by Nyck de Vries at the time - failed to get into the top 15 cutoff to progress into Thursday’s Hyperpole session.
The No.8 car, which Hartley shares with Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa, did progress but was 1.141s off the best pace set by the No.12 Jota Cadillac.
Speaking to Crash.net ahead of Thursday’s track action, Hartley says he approaches qualifying without any hope of battling for pole.
“I did a pretty clean run in qualifying,” he began.
“I did a safe one first lap to get on the board and then the second one I was relatively happy with the lap.
“It wasn’t perfect, I can’t imagine anyone did a perfect lap when you just one or two opportunities around here.
“That got us through to Hyperpole, but looking at that we realised we definitely don’t have the speed to be on pole position with our car here, which in one way I would say is fine, we move our focus onto the race car and not even dream about the possibility of pole position.
“But obviously it would have been nice to think about going for pole. But looking at yesterday, there’s a lot of cars who are faster than us over one lap.
“In the end, we want to win the race. No denying that I want to be fighting for pole, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.
“Car seven even got knocked out of the top 15. On one lap we’re not there, which was kind of similar last year, but hopefully with our long run pace, execution, we can fight back in the race.”
Hartley says the GR010-Hybrid is lacking in the high-speed sections, while team-mate in the No.7 car Mike Conway says top speed is also lacking compared to Porsche and Ferrari - which is “surprising”.
“If you look at some of the mini sectors, you’ll kind of see,” Conway told Crash.
“Top speed, the Porsche and Ferrari look very good - we’re lacking a bit there, which we’re a bit surprised about.
“Then through some of the mini sectors, like Porsche Curves, we’re definitely not good enough there. And there’s your one second qualy [gain] that you want.”
Hartley assured, however, that “I’m still going to send it” in Hyperpole and believes there is “room for improvement” on his part to find more lap time, with at top 10 “already good”.
No.7 qualifying exit at 24 Hour of Le Mans explained
Conway explained that De Vries had a top 10 lap hindered by yellow flags in qualifying on Wednesday, while a mistake on his second attempt thwarted any recovery hopes.
“I think the main thing was just catching the yellow flag when one of the Alpines spun and it just so happened it was the lap when Nyck was going to do a lap that would have been enough to have been there in the top 10,” he said.
“I guess bad timing. I think he went for another lap after that and I think he just made a mistake.
“I knew we wouldn’t be the quickest but I was hoping it wouldn’t be as difficult to get through.
“I didn’t think it would be easy, the competition is really tough.
“I knew Cadillac hadn’t really shown what they could do.
“They kind of did that last year as well, kept a bit till qualifying and they were very quick. We’ve seen it since the mini sectors since Sunday. It is what it is now.”
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