Fernando Alonso believes his victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours last weekend was not tainted by Toyota’s dominance of the LMP1 category.
Following Porsche’s decision to join Audi in pulling out of the WEC at the end of last year, it left the Japanese carmaker as the only manufacturer left with a hybrid engine competing against a number of privateer entries.
The pace difference around the Circuit de la Sarthe was staggering with the Spaniard’s winning No.8 car, alongside Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, finishing some 12 laps ahead of the first of those non-hybrid privateers – the No.3 Rebellion – yet…
“Last year were only four cars, this year there were 10,” Alonso said on Thursday, referring to the total number of cars in the LMP1 class.
“It was a great challenge. I put this victory in a higher level than any other victory in Le Mans.”
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With two legs of motorsport’s Triple Crown now in the bag, expectations are high that the double world champion will at the very least attempt to match Graham Hill by adding the Indianapolis 500 next year, if not move from F1 to IndyCar altogether.
“I didn’t think too much yet about this,” the McLaren driver stated.
“As I said last year when I entered the Indy 500, that was a very attractive target to achieve the Triple Crown and be a little bit more complete driver, not only drive F1 cars.
“With the Le Mans victory, it puts me a little bit closer to that target. I will think and I will see what I do next year.”