TOYOTA GAZOO Racing secures World Endurance Championship

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing won the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) title with victory in the eighth and final race of the season in Bahrain over the weekend.

Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López, driving the #7 TS050 HYBRID won the 8 Hours of Bahrain after overcoming a points deficit in the season finale. Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, the outgoing World Champions, alongside New Zealander Brendon Hartley in the #8 TS050 HYBRID delivered another great result for the team, earning second place, 64.594 secs behind.

Toyota New Zealand General Manager Marketing, Andrew Davis, said the win was another incredible result for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing and Brendon Hartley.

“When TOYOTA GAZOO racing brought its LMP1 Hybrid to the WEC in 2016 at first it suffered a series of setbacks. But the team and cars have grown stronger with each outing, winning Le Mans three times in a row and, now the WEC for two years running. It is a great achievement for the team and highlights Toyota’s commitment to endurance racing,” he said.

After the Bahrain race, Brendon Hartley said, “We knew that we were more than half a second down, so we really threw everything at it. On the average lap times we were good, but it was not enough today with the success handicap. Congratulations to car #7 who did not make any mistakes. They did the job and deserve the drivers’ World Championship.”

The Bahrain race brought the curtain down on the LMP1 era in endurance racing, in which Toyota has participated since 2012. In its 64 races, the team has won 29 races, earned 26 pole positions and set 24 fastest laps, winning both the teams’ and drivers’ World Championship in three of its eight seasons.

Since its 2016 debut, the TS050 HYBRID has been raced by 11 different drivers in 34 races, winning Le Mans three times as part of 19 WEC victories, earning 16 pole positions and setting 15 fastest laps in the process.

During that period, fuel consumption has been reduced by 35% while lap times at Le Mans improved by around 10 seconds per lap, with the team’s final LMP1 car, the TS050 HYBRID, writing a new page in endurance history by setting the fastest-ever lap around the legendary Circuit de la Sarthe.

While the desert dust is settling on the 2019-2020 season, preparations for the six-race 2021 campaign are already under way with endurance tests for the team’s new Hypercar planned in the coming months, prior to its race debut in the 1000 Miles of Sebring on 19 March, 2021.