Autosport – 21 June 2018

When Kamui Kobayashi slowed to a crawl in the penultimate hour, Toyota’s ‘easy’ run to its fi rst Le Mans victory suddenly looked under threat. Could its curse really strike again? Fortunately, the problem turned out to be nothing more than Kobayashi forgetting to stop, and the Japanese manufacturer duly
completed its one-two, fi nally ending three decades of heartache. Despite what a few naysayers may think, Fernando Alonso’s appearance at Le Mans was a huge positive for the race. And so was his victory. Yes, he stole most of the headlines, but there were more of those headlines, and more people reading them, because the double Formula 1 world champion was in the classic French enduro.