Another win in Chile draws Toyota even with Lancia
Just a week after Toyota Gazoo Racing faced the disappointment of stealing defeat from the jaws of victory in the Austin, Texas World Endurance Championship, Oliver Solberg and Elliott Edmondson made amends by winning Rally Chile to wrap up Toyota’s record-equalling tenth World Rally Championship over the weekend.
Looking back a week, Ferrari crew Andrea Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Niklas Nielsen inherited a dramatic Austin 6 Hour victory when the race-leading No. 7 Toyota stopped with 15 minutes left to trace. Then the second placed da Costa, Milesi and Habsburg Alpine was penalised to promote the Bamber, Bourdais and Aitken Cadillac to second ahead of it.
Aston Martin trio, Tincknell, Gamble and Gunn ended third from the second Makowiecki, Gounon and Martins Alpine, and the surviving Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa Toyota in sixth. It was a good day all round for Aston Martin as Mattia Drudi, Ian James and Zacharie Robichon’s Vantage fought the Guven, Cottingham and Boguslavisky Porsche off for GT3 honours.
Toyota still leads World Endurance Championship
An even tougher weekend for BMW allowed Toyota to extend its championship advantage to eight points, with Ferrari closing in in thir. BMW duo René Rast, and Robin Frijns and Toyota trio Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck De Vries sit tied in the lead of the Driver’s rankings.
While it’s still all to do in the WEC, Toyota has wrapped it up on the WRC following
Solberg and Edmondson’s Chilean win. The Swede made best of fast changing conditions to establish authority early in the weekend with GR teammates Elfyn Evans and Scott Martin in chase. They however had to stop to change a wheel and leave another Toyota crew, Sébastien Ogier and Adrien Fourmaux to claim second.
Hyundai crew Adrien Fourmaux and Alexandre Coria ended third from Toyota crews Pajari and Salminen, and Evans and Martin and the Lappi Mälkönen Hyundai. That leaves Evans leading Pajari by 17 points in the Driver’s chase with Solberg now just four more points adrift. That also clinched Toyota’s sixth successive and tenth overall manufacturers’ championship to tie with Lancia as the most successful World Rally Manufacturers in history.
