Porsche’s Kevin Estre felt Toyota rival Ryo Hirakawa was “blocking me everywhere” despite being shown blue flags on an outlap in Sunday’s Fuji WEC race.
Long-time race leader Estre encountered the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Hirakawa at the beginning of the sixth hour after the Japanese driver came into the pits relatively early for his final pitstop.
Driving the #6 Porsche Penske 963 LMDh, Estre continued to close in on Hirakawa, who was first shown a blue flag at the Turn 8 kink. But after running nose to tail at the Dunlop chicane, Estre and Hirakawa made contact at the long Turn 15 hairpin, with the Toyota driver subsequently running off the track.
Rejoining the circuit, Hirakawa briefly moved ahead of Estre into Turn 16, before the Porsche driver finally accelerated clear of him on the main straight to put a lap on him.
Speaking after clinching his second win of the year together with team-mates Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer, Estre claimed that Hirakawa had no intention to let him by easily despite being obliged to do so.
The 30-year-old was later deemed guilty of ignoring blue flags and handed a drive-through penalty by the stewards.
“The #8 Toyota came out on cold tyres, at least on one side [of the car],” Estre explained. “It was a bit slower and it was about to get one lap down and he definitely did not drive to let me [by]. He blocked everywhere and I had to pass him, and he passed me, and so on.
“It was quite hot, we had a little contact in Turn 15. So they threw stuff at us but we are stronger this year. So they keep throwing but somehow they don't succeed, which is great for us.”
Hirakawa was running fourth on merit before pitting and would have regained the lap he lost to Estre after the Porsche driver made his own stop later in the final hour. But the drive-through penalty meant the #8 GR010 Hybrid Hirakawa shared with Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley could finish no higher than 10th, costing Toyota the lead in the manufacturers' standings to Porsche.
Hirakawa admitted that he did not want to make it easy for Estre to lap him, but felt that the French driver also deserved to be penalised for pushing him off the track.
“I knew that I was fighting with car #6,” he said. “When I saw in mirror car #6, I tried to focus on my tyre prep. Of course I would not go easy on them.
“And then car #6 just pushed me off at Turn 15. That's it. Apparently, I had an infringement for a blue flag. I think I had [done] nothing wrong.
“When I heard there was an investigation for car #8 and car #6, I thought maybe car #6 gets a penalty because he pushed me off. Was a bit of a surprise.”
In its report, the stewards stated that “car 8 was shown blue flag on multiple occasions and should have not continued to fight with car 6 in turn 13-14-15-16”.
But Toyota’s technical director David Floury was unimpressed by the decision to penalise Hirakawa, insisting that he wasn’t given enough time to let Estre pass him.
The sanction was particularly significant as it has left Toyota facing a 10-point deficit to Porsche in the manufacturers’ standings with just the Bahrain finale season to run.
“Once again we can question the decisions that were taken against us,” he said. “Clearly [with] blue flags you get a penalty when you have a blue flag for two sectors [and] we get the blue flag [for the] first time in Turn 8.
“We were offsetting the strategy because we had decided to cut short that stint to go for a full stint at the end of the race with new tyres. So we were offset virtually, we were like 25-30s behind car #6 and not a full lap [down].
“In any case, we got a blue flag in turn 8, which is the first time, and he [Estre] pushed us off in Turn 15. We left room for him to go by, he hit us, pushed us off track and we get a penalty because we made contact with him.
He added: “I would like to understand because I've clearly not seen the same action recently and it's becoming a lot [more difficult] this season.
“I've seen more penalties for yellow flag infringement in that race than in the last four seasons altogether. This is a consequence of the fact that in Austin we complained about this situation.
“Clearly not happy with [how] the sporting aspects are handled.”
Incidentally, the other cars from Toyota and Porsche were also involved in a collision, with Kamui Kobayashi taking the blame for the collision that put the #7 GR010 HYBRID out of the race.
