Toyota's Sarrazin, Lopez swap seats for Le Mans

Toyota Gazoo Racing has announced that its driver line-up for the Le Mans 24 Hours next month has been modified. For the race, the team has opted to move Frenchman Stéphane Sarrazin to the No. 7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid, and Argentinian José María Lopez to the No. 9 TS050.

This move has been made following Lopez's incident at Silverstone in the opening round, which forced him to sit out the 6 Hours of Spa with the team due to injury, losing valuable track time. Lopez, who is new to LMP1 racing, will therefore race in the team's third car for the race with Nicolas Lapierre and fellow Le Mans debutant Yuji Kunimoto.

The No. 8 will feature the same line-up which finished second at Le Mans last year with the team, Sarrazin joining up with Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi once again. The trio in the No. 8, meanwhile will stay the same, with Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima racing together at Le Mans for a third straight year.

"Our circumstances have changed over the last few weeks as a result of the injury to José María," said team president Toshio Sato. "He is in the unfortunate position of having completed very few racing laps this year in WEC, so we all felt it was appropriate to adjust the driver line-up.

"I am very confident that Stéphane will fit well into a No. 7 lineup which can fight for the win. José María, like Yuji, will learn a lot at Le Mans this year, familiarizing himself with the track and the event in general, and this is an important step for the future as well."

After Le Mans on June 17-18, Lopez will return to the No. 7 car for the remainder of the 2017 WEC season, when the team returns to racing with just two LMP1 Hybrids.