A "disguised" marshal driver forced the retirement of the Toyota that led for more than 9 hours at Le Mans

Kamui Kobayashi received mysterious signals from an LMP2 driver that could have forced his retirement.

Luck was not on Toyota’s side at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Alongside the retirement of car number 9, which was rammed by an LMP2, came the eccentric incident suffered by the car that led much of the race – prototype number #7 driven by Kamui Kobayashi – an inexplicable event that has unleashed the incendiary statements of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s technical director, Pascal Vasselon.

Clutch problem after receiving mysterious signals from a “fake marshal”

Car #7 suffered a mishap with its clutch right after refuelling under the Safety Car, and Toyota points out that the cause could lie in the mysterious signals he received from a “fake marshal”, who had forced him to stop and restart several times.

The alleged culprit: an LMP2 category driver

The alleged culprit has been identified by many as Vincent Capillaire, an LMP2 category driver competing for the Algarve Pro Racing team, and, to the confusion of Toyota’s car #7, he was wearing overalls in the same colour used by marshals (orange); although it must be said that, like any driver, he was wearing a helmet and a safety harness, something Kamui Kobayashi, amid the nerves of competition, failed to notice.

The inexplicable justification of the driver after the controversy

After being fined by race direction, Vincent Capillarie wrote the following on his Facebook account:

“On Saturday night, during the race, I was waiting for my relief driver with my helmet on in my pit box. I wanted to show my support for the leading car, stopped at the red light a few metres in front of my garage. It was a spontaneous gesture of support, a sign of the relationship between drivers. I received a fine from the marshals for this gesture and I admit it was inappropriate. I am sorry”

It is difficult to know to what extent his controversial signals caused the failure of Toyota’s car #7, but in any case, there was too much at stake to so unfortunately encourage a car that had been leading the race for more than 9 hours. Furthermore, many claim that the support gestures made by Capillaire are somewhat unnatural, and therefore arouse suspicion.

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s technical director blames the “fake marshal” for the mechanical problems suffered by car #7

In statements to Sportscar365, one of the reference publications when it comes to endurance racing, the technical director of Toyota Gazoo Racing assured that the clutch of car number 7 suffered a mishap because of the “fake marshal”. These were his statements:

“It’s incredible… Someone went up to him and told him, and we have it on video, “Go, go, go”. And normally our drivers tend to give priority to people’s gestures (over other signals). For our part, we told him to stop because the pack behind the Safety Car was on its way and it was not possible to leave. There was, as you can imagine, some confusion. Start, stop, start, stop. He performed several start-up operations with the clutch and the combustion engine and ended up burning out the clutch by finding himself in a situation that should never have occurred”.

LMP1 clutches are not designed to start from a standstill

Vasselon’s theory is valid from a mechanical point of view, since the clutches of hybrid LMP1 cars are not designed to operate from a standstill; they run in 100% electric mode until they reach a certain speed. Considering that Kobayashi would have engaged the combustion engine to carry out the start manoeuvre on several occasions, the possibility that the mechanics of his Toyota suffered abnormal overstress is plausible.