Sebastien Buemi has detailed the reasons that made the difference in the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours, as the #7 Toyota prevailed while the sister #8 car finished a close third.
The TR010 Hybrids started from just 14th and 15th on the grid, as Toyota “didn’t focus on qualifying at all”, but they certainly made up for it with an offset strategy early on.
Both cars first pitted a few laps earlier than their rivals, and Buemi in particular achieved a real tour de force by undercutting his way into the lead thanks to lightning-quick pace. He then built a gap of nearly 30 seconds, establishing the #8 as a consistent contender for victory.
However, after several neutralisations of the race including two safety car interventions, a pitlane speeding penalty, and a technical issue, the #8 ended up third, just 20.417s adrift from victory and 9.504s down on the second-placed #20 BMW.
“A bit tired, a bit disappointed,” Buemi commented. “It’s tough, but that’s how it is, you need a bit of luck and good timing.
“We clearly felt faster early in the race, and even this morning, we felt good. Then we ended up getting this penalty, being unlucky with this slow zone – we were in it when they activated it. The difference is nearly nothing, looking at the gap at the end.”
The Swiss veteran went on to suggest he was unimpressed by the decisions made by race control.
“It’s sometimes a bit difficult to understand how they choose the safety cars, the slow zones or the full-course yellows,” he added. “You sometimes feel like it’s the same incident, nearly identical. But once it’s a safety car, and another time it’s a full-course yellow.”
Here, Buemi most likely was referring to the first safety car intervention for a GT3 car beached deep into the gravel – a decision which did raise eyebrows, at least in the media centre.
“So we were a bit unlucky with this,” he continued. “And then we took a penalty with Ryo. The 80km/h pit limiter had a small problem, exceeding it by 0.1km/h or 0.2km/h. So we got a drive-through.
“Then at the end, we were a bit unlucky with strategy because we didn’t really know when to put the [new] tyres on. The #7 car put them shortly before us. We ended up stuck behind the Cadillac for a long time. So this allowed the #7 to catch up strongly and get ahead easily.”
The #8 Toyota ended up spending 45 minutes and 36 seconds in the pitlane throughout the race, while the sister #7 car managed just 42 minutes and 56 seconds and the #20 BMW was even more efficient, with 41 minutes and 17 seconds.
Asked by Motorsport if those few extra minutes made the difference, Buemi replied: “Yes, we had a screw that came undone on the cover around the carbon parts on the brake. It started tattering the rim, so we had to repair it, and we lost one minute there.”
The extended stop, though it was obviously detrimental to track position given the #8 car was leading after Hour 17 but dropped to fourth, was offset by the second safety car, which was called into action thereafter.
In that context, it is most interesting to look at the time spent in the pitlane in the last five hours of the race. This equates to eight minutes and two seconds for the #20 BMW, eight minutes and 38 seconds for the #7 Toyota, but just seven minutes and 56 seconds for the #8 Toyota.
Still, it never recovered from that setback. Brendon Hartley drifted 22 seconds away from the lead, with Buemi eventually unable to retrieve that time.
Still, the 37-year-old expressed contentment regarding Toyota’s return to Le Mans victory after three consecutive Ferrari wins – especially as most of the Japanese manufacturer’s previous success came against meagre competition.
“This shows everyone that this time, we beat everyone, and there’s no debating it,” Buemi insisted. “That’s great. But winning is not harder today then when we were battling each other a few years ago – it’s different. But I think beating all those teams today earns more respect.”
