Hypercar @ 6 Hours of Portimao 2021
First overall pole for Matthieu Vaxiviere with Alpine #35 followed by Brendon Hartley in the #8 Toyota GR010 and Mike Conway (#7 Toyota GR010). All three are within 0,176s.
Nicolas Lapierre Alpine A480 Gibson non-hybrid LMP1#36 takes the lead of the Hypercar and LMP group.
Nico Lapierre (Alpine #36) passing Kazuki Nakajima (Toyota #8) in lap 210 to get P2, then putting Kamui Kobayashi (Toyota #7) under pressure until pit stop. Still 2hours 15’ to go but the Alpine cannot carry as much fuel as the Toyota.
Toyota GR010 #8 was in a better strategy than Hypercar opponents but an FCY 30’ from the end enabled Pechito Lopez (Toyota #7) to pit and go back in race in Buemi’s Toyota bumpers. Lopez was putting Buemi under pressure until the team ordered him to let Lopez take over… and reverse decision a few laps later! Buemi/Nakajima/Hartley in Toyota GR010 HYBRID are the winners of the 8 Hours of Portimao.
First race for Glikenhaus Racing beautiful Hypercar. Hard debut for Romain DUMAS, Ryan BRISCOE, Richard WESTBROOK, who had to correct seriously their car’s trajectory at the exit of fast curves as one could see on live coverage. They ended the race after several emotions, 54 laps behind the Toyota's.
1-2 for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team at the 8 Hours of Portimão. Second victory this season for the #8 Toyota GR010 Hypercar driven by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima.
Sorry for the poor quality of the photo’s. Due to pandemic we had to follow the race on YouTube and get those instants on an iPad.
