Brendon Hartley and the No.8 Toyota finished second in the first World Endurance Championship race of the year at Sebring.
The trio of Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa finished 37 seconds adrift of the race-winning Alpine LMP1 machine. They were consistently outpaced by the French squad before the 1000-mile race concluded under a red flag.
Three red flags disrupted the flow of the race, the most ever seen in a WEC race.
Jose Maria Lopez triggered the first when he careened hard into a tyre wall, flipping the No.7 Toyota hypercar.
The last two stoppages were caused by the weather as a thunderstorm rolled into the area.
Hartley’s race suffered a miscue when he pitted the No.8 immediately after the first red flag to avoid running out of fuel.
However, that was done under safety car conditions, and he had to stop again on the next lap for a full service.
In any case, the Toyotas had no answer to Alpine’s pace all week.
The grandfathered LMP1 car took pole on Friday, stormed to an early lead and controlled the pace all the way to the chequered flag.
Any chance of some late rain creating an exciting finish was dashed when race control red flag the race twice due to lightning strikes.
For Alpine, the occasion marks their first overall race win in the World Endurance Championship.
“We deserved it,” driver Matthieu Vaxiviere said.
“We expected this. We started on the right foot,” added Andre Negrao.
With the second Toyota in pieces, Glickenhaus rounded out the hypercar class podium a lap down.
The weekend also marked the WEC debut for Nick Cassidy, the only other Kiwi in the field.
Cassidy was racing a Ferrari 488 Evo in the GTE-Am class. He finished ninth in class and 30th overall.
Round two of WEC is the 6 Hours of Spa in early May.
