Toyota Racing can confirm that Stéphane Sarrazin will drive its #8 TS030 Hybrid at the Le Mans 24 Hours. The Frenchman, 36, replaces Hiroaki Ishiura, who withdrew from the race earlier this month due to a back complaint. He completes the driver line-up for the #8 car which already includes Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi.
Toyota Racing completed its evaluation of Sarrazin in testing this week at Paul Ricard and, as expected from a very experienced endurance driver, he showed the speed, consistency and team work required. Sarrazin, who has finished on the podium three times at Le Mans, is returning to Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG) after 10 years, following his spell as Formula 1 test driver in 2002.
Yoshiaki Kinoshita, Team President: "We are very pleased to recruit a driver of Stéphanes quality and experience to Toyota Racing. He has a great knowledge of Le Mans and a proven track record, including two second-place finishes, so we are confident he will be a strong addition to our driver line-up. Several team members remember Stéphane very well from his previous time at TMG and we are all looking forward to working with him again."
Stéphane Sarrazin: "I am really happy and proud to get this chance to participate at Le Mans for Toyota Racing. I have good memories of working with TMG; they work very hard and it is a real pleasure to be back. It has been quite intense this week to become familiar with the team and the car, but I have received great support and I feel we have made good progress. It is a steep learning curve with a completely new technology and we will no doubt learn a lot this season. Its a new and exciting challenge for me."
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