Andre Lotterer revealed to The Racing Line that he was approached by Toyota before his 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship season with Porsche.
He holds the unique distinction as both the very first and the most recent champion in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The 43-year-old spoke to The Racing Line ahead of his final WEC race for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the 8 Hours of Bahrain where he concluded a lengthy chapter in endurance prototype machinery.
Besides winning the inaugural WEC LMP1 Drivers' championship in 2012, as well as recently as a Hypercar Drivers' champion in Bahrain, Lotterer looked back on his prolific stint in top-level sportscar racing.
Phil Oakley
Fighting for the 2011 Le Mans 24 Hours
The German told us his 2011 victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, alongside Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fassler, changed his career trajectory.
"That was definitely a game changer for my career and the biggest highlight.
"[It] was epic with an amazing battle with Peugeot," he said, grinning. Lotterer's #2 Audi R18 TDI finished 13.854 ahead of Peugeot's #908 HDi FAP car, driven by Sébastien Bourdais, Pedro Lamy, and Simon Pagenaud.
Peugeot almost achieved redemption at La Sarthe, after their heartbreak in the previous running in 2010, which saw all four retire at various intervals throughout the race. They won the race in 2009, but weren't able to repeat this in the following two years, against the might of the Joest-run Audi team.
They were in the fight for the lead but the race ended with an all-Audi podium, and Peugeot nearly claimed victory.
Furthermore in 2011, Lotterer and co-drivers Fassler and Tréluyer put the only Le Mans podium-finishing Audi albeit on the vital top step.
"We were the only car fighting against three Peugeots," he recalled.
"We exchanged the lead like 40-50 times and the last pit stop was only six seconds apart on the same lap.
"There were amazing stints where we did five stints on the tyres, flat-out.
"It was really pure, flat-out driving."
"Sometimes we did a bit [of fuel saving] because we had this puncture, so I had to save some fuel to extend the stint so we didn't do a splash.
"It definitely changed the trajectory of my career, because that meant that I could negotiate a full-time deal when the work came and then I shifted my career more internationally."
A tenured friendship with teammates
The German highly regarded Fassler and Treyuler as teammates, having driven with them for seven consecutive years from the start to the end of his chapter with Audi in 2016.
Lotterer first encountered Treyuler at the beginning of his notable chapter of racing in Japan long before his 2010 Le Mans debut.
"The trio I had in Audi, for sure, it's something that was quite unique because I was like a brother with Ben already before joining Audi.
"He was my first friend when we arrived in Japan 2003 and we were friends for seven years, and we always wished like it would be so cool to share a car together even though we were fighting each other."
Lotterer established a talented reputation in Japan as a regular title contender over a decade prior to his Audi efforts.
Both Lotterer and Treyuler each claimed two championship titles in Formula Nippon – currently known as Super Formula – and Super GT.
His 2011 Le Mans victory was significant in an unfamiliar paddock where he considered himself and Fassler 'underdogs'.
The maiden Le Mans victory was the first of three with Audi Sport Team Joest and Fassler and Treyuler.
"So, with a lot of holidays together, we're still best friends now and Marcel got added to that after knowing Ben already before.
"And I've always had a lot of respect for him [Marcel] because I was watching him racing Formula 3, so naturally the three of us were at the same similar staging our career, where this was a huge gig for us.
"It was a breakthrough moment, so the three of us had that energy together, and we just got along super well. There were no egos and we supported [each other].
"We all had different roles and it was just natural energy that that would bring everyone forward."
The WEC thrill of LMP1-Hybrid
The formation of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012 superseded the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup series run by the Automobile Club l'Ouest – the organisation who governs Le Mans. ILMC ran for two seasons, in 2010 and 2011, and was essentially a prototype for the return of a top level world championship sportscar series.
In WEC's first season, Lotterer, Fassler and Treyuler progressed further, winning Le Mans again, for the second time in succession, in addition to the taking the inaugural FIA WEC LMP1 Drivers' title.
Besides Peugeot, who prematurely withdraw before the 2012 season began, Audi continued their philosophy of diesel engines which attained success at Le Mans, in both WEC and the American Le Mans Series.
WEC specifically marked a new era of top class prototypes, the LMP1-Hybrid category, which featured internal combustion engine-electric hybrid powertrain cars, such as the new Audi R18 e-tron Quattro and Toyota TS030. The Japanese manufacturer had returned to sportscar racing that very year after an unsuccessful foray into Formula 1.
"I'll never forget the first laps of the first R18. Before that, they were a bit heavy with big engines and quite a lot of inertia, but the first [hybrid] Audi was very impressive, it fit me like a glove.
"Then the cars of after 2014, they became quite technologically super-advanced," he said,"but I remember amazing races."
The LMP1 cars introduced in 2014, in what was now known as LMP1-H, had upwards of 1,000 horsepower, deployed with four-wheel drive, making for incredible acceleration and top speeds. At times, the electric motor-battery combination was producing more horsepower than the internal combustion engines.
Audi, with a new version of the R18, plus Toyota with the TS040, and new-for-2014 entrants Porsche, with the 919 Hybrid, did battle with all three winning races and championships.
"I think of 2014 and '15 in Spa-Francorchamps and in Silverstone driving like a nut case, passing outside through traffic through Maggots and Becketts like the car, you could trust it so much.
"In terms of the chassis, the R18 in general was amazing and was really, really fun to drive.
"[The] 2016 car was was also good, but it took a bit of time to understand and then the programme stopped."
In light of the Volkswagen Automotive Group's dieselgate scandal in 2016, Audi decided to close the WEC programme, marking the end of sportscars' most prominent endurance racing efforts, which proved diesel could win the world's biggest endurance race, taking victory eight times with the Audi R10, the R15 Plus, and the R18.
A new chapter with Porsche
Lotterer transitioned to Porsche for the 2017 WEC season with their 919 Hybrid package.
"When I moved to the Porsche, it was a completely different car to drive in terms of powertrain.
"It was understeering a lot and I needed to adopt a completely different driving style, but in terms of chassis, the Audi was a pure joy to drive; a very instinctive car.
In the end, he teamed up with Neel Jani and Nick Tandy in the #1 Porsche.
Despite suffering an engine failure at just over 20 hours completed at Le Mans, Lotterer later participated in a gripping fight with Toyota's Jose Maria Lopez at the 6 Hours of COTA.
The #1 trio earned their third successive P2 finish albeit with great strength from Lopez who fended on heavily-used slicks.
Porsche's unforeseen departure
"It was a hard one to swallow," he said on Porsche's WEC departure at the end of 2017.
"The feeling was not good and you think 'Where's my career going, specially when you had the offer to race for Toyota [for 2017]'!
"When the Audi deal stopped, because of my relationship with Toyota [in Super GT] in Japan, they made me also a very nice offer but I wanted to race for Porsche.
"I didn't imagine that things would collapse and stop so soon."
A deal with Toyota, as advantageous that would be for Lotterer's WEC continuation, could have also denied his fabulous COTA jostle with Lopez – who joined Toyota GAZOO Racing from 2017.
Porsche's departure from WEC and sportscar racing, in 2017 as the 919 Hybrid programme came to an end, left Toyota to continue as the only LMP1 manufacturer.
Lotterer went on race with Rebellion Racing, a privateer-funded LMP1 team, during the 2018-19 Super-Season.
From 2019, he returned with Porsche in their new FIA Formula E project.
In 2023, he formally left FE after a season with Andretti in light of Porsche's then-new LMDh effort – which marked Lotterer's FIA World Endurance Championship return after a three-year absence.
Returning to the top
Together with his 2024 teammates Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre, his win at the new Qatar 1812 km season-opener marked Lotterer's first WEC win since 2015 — plus his first win in Porsche machinery, having not won a race in his seasons in Formula E.
Whilst the Hypercar machinery do not reach the levels of speed and downforce of the LMP1-H cars, the new era opened the table to the highest mixture of manufacturers the WEC had never seen before.
More so, the #6 Porsche Penske 963 which Lotterer co-drove was one of six different overall race winners, another first for the WEC.
Amidst the exciting narrative, the #6 trio clenched the championship by 37 points in Bahrain.
Lotterer earned his second title against 19 other Hypercars in the 2024 season – Credit: DPPI
Phil Oakley
Not a moment too soon, Lotterer attained success again in the form of his second WEC title.
So what's Lotterer got planned next?
"I've been with Porsche for a long time, so there's the loyalty to stay together and do other projects together.
"It can be exciting. We need to see and understand what's possible to do, whether it's with GTs, or taking an ambassador role or do something completely different with someone else."
Whatever he decides next, whether he stays in the Hypercar class, races GT3s, or something else, Lotterer will be remembered for his exuberant and deterministic driving style which made his stints amongst the most exciting to watch in the height of WEC's LMP1 era.
Download The Racing Line, your personalised motorsport calendar, on iOS today to get up to date session times and customisable notifications for over 100 different series, including single seaters, sportscars, rally, bikes, and much more.