Toyota just isn’t planning to exchange Rob Leupen as crew director of its World Endurance Championship squad for subsequent season.
It has revealed that the duties on the race monitor undertaken by the Dutchman, who’s leaving Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe in Cologne after 30 years of service, will likely be taken up by current crew members.
TGRE vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima defined that the plan is “to unfold the duty with not just one successor”.
The three-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner, who moved right into a administration function after his retirement from the cockpit on the finish of 2021, took on Leupen’s function at this month’s 2024 WEC finale in Bahrain.
He burdened that Leupen’s departure, which was introduced the day earlier than the Bahrain occasion began, “shouldn’t change an excessive amount of for the race crew”.
“I don’t count on to have a brand new face within the crew; perhaps we can have a barely totally different construction,” he mentioned.
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries, #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa
Picture by: Shameem Fahath
He identified that TGR additionally has Kamui Kobayashi as crew principal, a task he combines with driving, and David Floury as technical director.
Leupen, 60, can be standing down as managing director of TGRE, and it’s doubtless he will likely be changed from inside, though Nakajima refused to enter element.
“I feel we now have good individuals in our firm who need to take some duty, however I cannot speak concerning the potentialities,” he mentioned.
Nakajima name-checked Peter Hesse, who took the function of director of enterprise growth and buyer motorsport in February of this 12 months.
Leupen is leaving TGRE, which was previously referred to as Toyota Motorsport GmbH (TMG), as a part of a administration restructure that started earlier within the 12 months with Pascal Vasselon being relieved of the technical directorship he had held since 2006.
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Toyota recruited Leupen in 1995 for a human sources function and he moved up the corporate construction to consecutively turn into common supervisor, director of enterprise operations and, from 2015, managing director.
He was known as both crew or race director within the context of the WEC operation on the Japanese marque’s return to top-flight sportscar racing on the rebirth of the sequence in 2012.
Leupen is leaving TGRE on the finish of the 12 months, however agreed to step down from his operational function inside the WEC crew previous to Bahrain.
