20/24 #17: Toyota GR010 (chassis #20-05)
Chosen by: Thomas Pfannstiel
Best finish: 1st, 2022
Team: Toyota Gazoo Racing
Driven by: Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa

I used to work with Thomas Pfannstiel, chief mechanic on the #8 Toyota hypercar, at Marc VDS in GT3 racing, where I was introduced to him as “Manfred”. Soon, every mechanic in the team was known as Manfred. Two years ago, Manfred took his first Le Mans win as a chief mechanic with the GR010, and Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa.

“All the pressure was on us,” he says. They rose through it, finishing ahead of the team-mate car by less than a lap, with perfect strategy and pitstops throughout.

One year later, they were second.

“Everyone was thinking we couldn’t repeat the 2022 performance,” he says of the ’23 race. “There were some late changes, and then we hit a squirrel, and we had some debris in the radiator, and we still almost won.”

Will they win this year? Only time will tell.

“We know what we can do,” reckons Manfred. We’ve all seen what they can do before…

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