[LM24 Race] Better Debut: Peugeot or Toyota

[alexkiller8]

hard to decide, in 2007 908HDi debuted with a victory but when faced the r10 at le mans there was no match. Toyota debuted with an incident and an engine failure but at least ran better than what everyone predicted!

[GTfour]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

Start on pole, finish the race, take it more conservatively in order to finish the race (if they were told to be more conservative in traffic and Nakajima had been a little more patient, then who knows? For a podium, all it woud have taken would have been to go a bit faster than the Rebellions - aside from the small matter of having no issues ), split strategies as I previously mentioned (although this would have been made redundant by Davidson's unfortunate accident anyway), been a little less conservative with the whole project.

Basically, my point is, if Toyota chucked millions at it, started this project sooner, and already had their race debut, they'd have had a better debut. Which is kinda obvious really - if Toyota was a dream team, it would have had a dream debut. That hasn't happened and it's not TMG's fault. I'm not blaming them. But this poll doesn't mention context, and I don't see how Toyota's debut can better Peugeot's near-perfect debut (don't forget how wet that race was to compound the challenge).

As I said, I'm not belittling Toyota's debut. They did superbly well. They could have done better though, because we can all agree it's not perfect. Toyota #7 didn't finish, Peugeot did, and that's what Le Mans is about.

This question should be asked a little longer after the race. I think when the TS030 reaches its potential, Le Mans 2012 will be seen as only a mini-demo of what was to come, while Peugeot's 2007 effort wasn't far short of what the car was capable of anyway.

No idea why I wrote so much on this subject, as I like to draw a line on the Pug era and I want Toyota to be seen as a new team. I never particularly liked the Peugeots and I'm glad this season we lost some diesels. But when I vote on something I like to defend myself

Toyota started soon enough, winning a 24 hrs race in Japan some 6 years ago, with the forerunner of this hybrid system, so that's irrelevant in your observation.
Money has never been an issue. Planning has been, however. The plan was to enter one car at Le Mans. Under the radar of Pug and Audi. Turned out Pug withdrew, so they were thrown into the deep with one steamproject car. One of which crashed at Paul Ricard. New tub costs zeven weeks in the making. 40 guys working long weeks, by hand...
Given Toyota's big order, I say they performed exceptionally well and handed Audi a very serius note for next year...

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

OK, fair enough, I'll read your 'several things they could have done' as meaning if they'd started the project earlier, threw a lot more cash at it and told the drivers to be as patient as those at Audi....... well, some of them, anyway.... ).

Mine is a thoroughly emotional context-laden take, and I make no excuses for that. The TS010 was (I believe) a better car than the Pug in '92/'93 (it was certainly the most incredible-sounding car) and the TS020 was just the most sublime car to me of all time. So I guess I was excited by Toyota in a way that Peugeot never really excited me as much. Besides, Peugeot never let me in their garage.......

I agree with that completely. The Pug/Audi battle was exciting but it had a feeling that it would be better if one of them were running petrols, or if one of them was a more traditional Le Mans manufacturer, and if at least one of them had the humanity, honesty and accessibility of the Toyota project.

Everyone complains about the PR nature of the Peugeot squad, and that's why they were never popular. Pescarolo gets the local support, Peugeot never did (unless young women clad in lycra gave them a free flag to wave ).

I don't think Public Relations can get much better than Toyota. Honesty and humility wins the day. Let people in your garage, admit your shortcomings, apologise to other teams for disrupting your race...it's just really good to see.

[Gingers4Justice]

Originally Posted by GTfour

Toyota started soon enough, winning a 24 hrs race in Japan some 6 years ago, with the forerunner of this hybrid system, so that's irrelevant in your observation.
Money has never been an issue. Planning has been, however. The plan was to enter one car at Le Mans. Under the radar of Pug and Audi. Turned out Pug withdrew, so they were thrown into the deep with one steamproject car. One of which crashed at Paul Ricard. New tub costs zeven weeks in the making. 40 guys working long weeks, by hand...
Given Toyota's big order, I say they performed exceptionally well and handed Audi a very serius note for next year...

Those 6 years counted for nothing when the alternator went! The TS030 wasn't winning races in Japan 6 years ago - part of it was. A big part of it, admittedly, but a massive percentage of that car was new, unraced, and had little testing. Peugeot had the luxury of two races before Le Mans and much more time to work with. Naturally, that would lead to a better debut and they were so well prepared it couldn't have gone much better for them. Various factors left room for improvement with Toyota.

In terms of context, it's up for debate, of course, but you have to judge this by results as it's a results business.

And I hope Toyota get the results!

[Adam43]

To repeat what was said above. Peugeot and this is for the obvious reason that they had more preparation.

[wewantourdarbyback]

I'm going for Toyota. Simply because of how they had to rush their preparation to make a two car programme that they never expected. Especially when the go button was only pushed in September by the suits back in Japan.

[knowyourenemy]

Toyota for me - i know on paper Peugeot's debut was the most successful, however considering the time they had to put this together and then agreeing to run 2 cars after Peugeot pulled out - to take the lead (albeit briefly) was hugely impressive.

Im a huge Audi fan, but if Toyota won i'd have been happy for them - i couldnt have said the same thing about Peugeot

[Articus]

Im not really sure. On the one hand I want to say the Toyota debut was better because they basically started running flatout out whereas the Peugeots detuned there engines from Qualy for the entire race. But then I think that this was a diesel racing engine which is untreaded waters seeing only Audi do it. Whereas Toyota had been using an engine that was basically pre-tested in the Rebellion and SGT cars. Seems silly for them to have had the engine failure issues on a modern Petrol engine.

On the biased opinion that I like Toyota better than I do Peugeot with there lack of certain drivers I say Toyota had the better debut. The car looked better as well.

[whitemr2]

It's Toyota for me, hybrid petrol, what a good sound. Leading your first race and it looked like the whole team was present to cheer for Audi at the victory ceremonie. Well done Toyota, next year its a podium for them, for sure. But I love Toyota so don't know if my opinion is very objective