Toyota executed flawlessly on its pit stop and the Cadillacs gained no ground. The trio had a solid lead even before defending race winner Ryō Hirakawa locked the brakes on his Toyota and hit the wall with 1 hour, 44 minutes remaining.

The trio of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi - with Ferrari Formula One driver Charles Leclerc in the garage watching - were the easy winner. Its chances were aided overnight when Kamui Kobayashi was wrecked out of the race, making it two versus one in favor of Ferrari. Toyota was dealt a blow before the race even began when race officials this week added additional weight to the dominant GR010s in a controversial “balance of performance” adjustment designed to level the playing field.įerrari in a pair of 499Ps pounced and swept the front row in qualifying and handled every challenge from Toyota.

Only this time it was Ferrari trying to knock down a giant the two-car Toyota Gazoo effort, which had entered the twice-round-the-clock race that ended Sunday on a five-year winning streak.

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