Toyota's Vasselon: 'Alonso's integration remarkably easy'

Fernando Alonso's integration into the Toyota WEC squad has been smooth and easy says the team's technical director Pascal Vasselon.

The two-time F1 world champion is chasing a win at Le Mans and undertaking the WEC's full super season with Toyota.

Alonso's initiated his career in endurance racing with a win at Spa on board Toyota's TS0560 Hybrid which he shared with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakagima. And he followed up that performance by topping the timesheet of last Sunday's Le Mans Test Day.

So far, it's been clear sailing for the Spaniard and the Japanese manufacturer.

"He's settled himself in the team in a way that makes things so easy," Vasselon told Motorsport.com.

"The guys know each other already. It's quite smooth. And he makes things smooth because he is coming with a pure and genuine motivation. It's remarkably easy so far."

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Toyota team boss Rob Leupen admitted the McLaren driver was somewhat of an unknown quantity for the team given his lack of experience of endurance racing.

Alonso had kickstarted his preparation for Le Mans by running the Daytona 24 Hours earlier this year with Zak Brown's United Autosports outfit.

The Spaniard's massive racing acumen and talent made sure he was up to speed in no time with Toyota.

"We did take a bit of a risk," Leupen told Motorsport.com.

"Okay, he's a double world champion, but he's a rookie. He has to deal with traffic.

"We're not here with 20 cars on roughly the same level, there's gigantic differences. He needs to be able to judge that.

"At Spa we saw some really good moments of him. At one point he was stuck behind a GTE going into Turn 17 [Blanchimont] and he did that perfectly.

"That was really good and that gives confidence to the team that he can do it.

"He's 100 percent professional, easy-going and open. It gives the engineers and the mechanics an extra boost, extra motivation.

"I think we can be very happy that he chose to race with us. In hindsight it's been a very good move."

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