Porsche driver Laurens Vanthoor says he knew making a lunge at Turn 1 would be the only chance of threatening Toyota in Sunday\u2019s Fuji World Endurance Championship race.
Vanthoor was able to hand over to Estre with the lead intact as the Toyotas lost time stuck behind the slower499Ps early on, but ultimately the superior race pace of the Japanese marque told as Estre was passed just shy of the four-hour mark.
“I’ve been doing the starts all year and I like doing them, and after qualifying I was joking to Kevin and Andre about making a move [at Turn 1] to upset the Toyotas, because we’re not going to be able to really fight them,” Vanthoor told Motorsport.com. Asked if he felt victory was possible after extending the lead to as much as 16 seconds at one stage, Vanthoor replied: “Genuinely in the first half-hour, I was thinking, am I using my tyres too much? Are they being more conservative?
“I think that was a big part of our performance, especially in the first two stints. Our engineering group selected the right tyres whereas Ferrari was on the hards and Toyota had some hards on their cars too as well.
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