Buemi: Toyota’s Spa engine failure not a concern for Le Mans

Buemi – who was leading convincingly at the time at Spa – explained that the engine failure on the #5 Toyota TS050 he shares with Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima was track-specific, and had been traced to the demands of Eau Rouge.

“First of all we analysed the problem, we discovered the problem and it was related to Eau Rouge,” said Buemi at the weekend. “And we’re very happy there is no Eau Rouge here at Le Mans!

“We know the problem, and we had good speed in Spa, so we plan to keep that and improve the reliability here.

“We’ve had two very contrasting races in Silverstone and Spa, so we look forward to what will be at Le Mans.”

On the subject of Porsche and Audi reducing their effort to two cars, like Toyota, Buemi said: “It’s going to be the same as since [Toyota] came back in 2012 – we never had more than two cars, so I think that’s good. Obviously the most important thing is to have the speed, and then you can focus on the rest.”

When asked who the pre-Le Mans favourite was, Buemi replied: “I think Porsche, first of all because their car is very similar to last year’s. They have experience and so reliability should be less of an issue. Even so, we’ve seen they had some problems at Spa.

“Even though Audi won at Spa, and at Silverstone before the disqualification, I think Porsche has the upper hand.

“We’ve only had two races, but in those we’ve seen lots of problems with reliability.”

“Better prepared than last year”

Of his own chances with Toyota, Buemi was non-committal in terms of outright pace.

Teammate Davidson set the fifth-fastest time on Sunday’s Test Day, but the team failed to record any new-tyre runs due to a red flag.

“I don’t want to be overexcited,” he said. “But with what we’ve seen in Spa, we were leading the race by one lap before the engine failure. That shows we have some speed, and we are much better prepared than last year.

“I don’t expect us to be very competitive in qualifying, compared to Porsche – as they’ve shown us a lot of speed so far. But we will definitely be much better and I hope we can fight for the win in the race.”

Interview by Basile Davoine