Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Toyota Motorsport announces #LeMans drivers

The driver line-up for Toyota's return to Le Mans next year, and the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championships, was announced yesterday. By golly are they serious at Toyota Motorsport GmbH in Cologne, Germany. Of the three drivers, two have taken part in the legendary Le Mans race. Alexander Wurz, former F1 driver for Benetton, McLaren and the Toyota-powered Williams teams, took the chequered flag at the Circuit de la Sarthe twice in 1996 and 2009.



Nicolas Lapierre has been super successful in other single-seater series, including GP2 and the A1 Grand Prix where he took Team France to victory in the 2005-6 season. He's also been dabbling in endurance racing for the past few years, racking up 5th place finishes at Le Mans in 2009 and 2011.

Finally, we see the return of Kazuki Nakajima back to the European racing circuit after successful stints at the top of single-seater racing in Formula 1, also with the Toyota-powered Williams. Mroe recently, he returned to race in Japan with Formula Nippon, picking up a win after just his second race outing and topping the championship table this year.

The drivers will soon begin preparing for gruelling season of endurance racing to come. The good news is that TMG is definitely the right place to be for that. Their high-tech driving simulator was only recently upgraded to include tracks like La Sarthe and the Nürburgring Nordschleife, among other tech, equipment and personnel, a lot of it coming from the old Toyota F1 days.

More details on Toyota European Corporate Blog

Image source: Toyota Motorsport GmbH

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