Norman Nato lamented the timing of a late full-course yellow at the Le Mans 24 Hours, but said Cadillac would not have been able to beat Toyota to victory regardless.
Jota’s factory #12 Cadillac V-Series.R shared by Nato, Will Stevens and Louis Deletraz finished fourth in the blue-riband round of the World Endurance Championship, just 32.8s down on the race-winning #7 Toyota TR010.
Nato was running in a net third place behind the two Toyotas when the FCY was deployed with just another three hours remaining due to a stranded Aston Martin Vantage GT3 on track.
With little fuel left in the #12 Cadillac, the Frenchman had to come into the pits for a quick top-up. But the race went back to green shortly after he entered the pitlane, costing him a chunk of time compared to his rivals. By contrast, the #7 Toyota that came into the pits on the same lap completed its pitstop under FCY conditions, while both the #8 Toyota and #20 BMW came in before the caution.
Further, due to the regulations, Nato was forced to bring the car back to the pits the next lap for a full service, where he handed the car to team-mate Stevens.
The Briton rejoined in fourth place and slashed a 25 second deficit to the #8 Toyota by half over the remainder of the race, but the #12 Cadillac crew ultimately missed out on a podium finish.
“We’ve been fighting from the beginning to the end to win the race. It’s clearly shown that we’ve made good progress compared to last year,” Nato told Motorsport.com.
“It is disappointing not to be on the podium. Obviously, we’ve been very unlucky with the full course yellow – the last one where we’ve lost about 40 seconds. We had to do an emergency pit stop.
“From there, three hours before the end, it was the worst time to get this full course yellow. When I entered the pits, they went back to green, so we lost about 40 seconds. It really compromised our race from there, because after that there was no full course yellow or safety car or anything.
“So it’s basically like a pure pace if we had to come back, but we were about 20 seconds behind.
“We knew Toyota were a little bit better than us on tyre degradation, especially when the track conditions were hot. It’s frustrating because I feel like we deserve to be on the podium today and we’re not. But it is what it is.
“We’ve shown almost until the end we were in a position to win the race, so it’s clearly a step forward compared to last year so we’re going to try again next year.”
#38 Cadillac Hertz Team Jota Cadillac V-Series.R: Sebastien Bourdais, Earl Bamber, Jack Aitken
Photo by: Alessio Morgese / NurPhoto via Getty Images
Cadillac emerged as a serious contender for victory with its two full-season entries, but after the #38 car dropped out in the early hours of Sunday due to power steering issues, it was left with just one car in the lead battle.
Despite the #12 Cadillac still running strong in the final stages, Nato believes beating Toyota to victory would have ultimately been difficult.
Asked where he would have finished the race without the ill-timed final FCY, he said: “I think we would have been P2. I don’t think we would have been [in contention] for the win but P2 [was possible].
“I don’t know exactly the numbers, but we lost between 25 to 35 seconds, if not 40 seconds, and look at the gaps at the end of the race.
“It put us in a situation where we just had to push like crazy at the end but the gap was too much.
“So, I think it would have been between P2 and P3. For the win, I don’t think so. But at the end, we will never know. Maybe we would have pushed Toyota as well. In this case, you start to make mistakes.
“At the end, the #7 got a little bit lucky in a way as they managed to be by themselves in clean air at the front.”
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