Buemi admits WEC title hopes “over” after Le Mans

Buemi, along with Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima, were poised to break Toyota’s duck in the French endurance classic until their TS050 Hybrid ground to a halt at the start of the final lap with a turbo system problem.

Although they had completed enough laps to be theoretically classified second, they were excluded from the results for taking too long to complete the final tour, which Nakajima managed to using electric power only.

It leaves the trio 93.5 points adrift of Le Mans winners and championship leaders Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas – a gap Buemi thinks will be virtually impossible to bridge.

“Clearly Le Mans was very difficult for us to accept,” Buemi told Motorsport.com. “I don’t think it ever happened in the history of that race to lose it in the last lap, but we have to move on.

“I’m looking forward to the rest of the season because we’ve had a very competitive car for the last two races.

“We want to go to victories, we know the championship is over for us, so we will be aggressive and take a lot of risks in some places. Hopefully we can win a few races.”

Video: Buemi on Le Mans heartache...

Nurburgring win "difficult"

Buemi acknowledged however that this weekend's Nurburgring round is unlikely to yield Toyota its first WEC win since Shanghai 2014 – despite the Japanese marque rolling out its third aero kit of the year to cope with the German track’s downforce demands.

“We’ve made a step compared to Silverstone, however it may not be enough for this track,” admitted the Swiss driver.

“We tried to add more downforce, but maybe it’s not enough compared to the others.

“I don’t think we’ll be massively behind, just a little bit off, but if it rains it could be a little bit worse.

“But it should be enough [downforce] for the rest of the season, because this track is very particular and needs a massive amount of downforce.”

Interview by Filip Cleeren