The season-ending Bahrain 8 Hours gets underway at 14:00 local time today with all titles with the exception of the overall Hypercar manufacturers/ teams title (which fell east weekend to Toyota Gazoo Racing), still up for grabs.
You can follow the race in video on the FIA WEC App with comms from the regular WEC TV crew, led by Martin Haven, with Allan McNish and the DSC Ed. Pitlane will be patrolled by Louise Beckett and Duncan Vincent.
You can also follow with free audio-only coverage of the same commentary with the link from the live timing page on the App or on the FIA WEC website.
There are multiple additional viewing options too: details here >>
Titles outstanding
With 150% of the points awarded for a regular 6 Hour WEC race the points battles are even more open than usual:
38 points are now available for a win with 2nd place in each class w=awarded 27, 3rd 23, 4th 18, 5th 15, 6th 12, 7th 9, 8th 6, 9th 3, 10th 1 and every other finisher getting a single point.
In Hypercar’s Driver’s World Championship the points gap post qualifying is 16 in favour of the #7 crew – effectively a 3rd place finish is then enough.
In LMP2 the 38 point spread sees four teams in the hunt, Team WRT lead by just 5 points ahead of the 328 Jota car with the sister #38 squad a further 12 points back, 17 off the Championship leaders. The defending Champions at United Autosports still have hope in their #22 car but are 24 points off the leaders.
In the Driver Championship there are effectively 5 potential Championship winners: JOTA’s #28 crew of Sean Gelael, Stoffel Vandoorne and Tom Blomqvist lead by just 2 points from the Team WRT trio of Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Robin Frijns.
The #38 JOTA crew of Ant Davidson, Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzales are just seven points back. A win then for any of the three will secure the Championship.
Phil Hanson sits fourth, 13 points off the leaders, a win for him with the contenders ahead no better than third will be enough.
Also mathematically in the hunt are Alex Brundle and Kuba Schmiechowski in the #34 Inter Europol Competition car, a consistent season sees them still with hope, though that would depend on real dramas for multiple title contenders.
LMP2 Pro Am is three car battle with the teams Championship top three separated by just seven points. Winner takes all then if the Championship-leading #21 DragonSpeed USA, Racing Team Nederland or RealTeam Racing take the top step tonight.
In the drivers stakes the gap is nine points, Frits van Eerd leads ahead of Ben Hanley, Henrik Hedman, and Juan Pablo Montoya from DragonSpeed and, level on points RealTeam’s Norman Nato and Esteban Garcia.
GTE Pro, amazingly, is even tighter, the Drivers Championship is all square between the #51 Ferrari crew and the #92 Porsche pair.
The Manufacturers Championship sees Porsche lead by just 2 points from Ferrari.
GTE AM meanwhile sees two crews still in the hunt with the #83 AF Corse Ferrari crew of Alessio Rovera, Francois Perrodo and Nicklas Nielsen leading the drivers and teams championship by 21.5 points from TF Sport’s #33 Aston Martin squad of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga.
4th or better in any circumstances sees the title going to the Ferrari team.
Balance Of Performance Protest Rejected
The long saga of balance of performance adjustments and protests for and from Ferrari reached a conclusion (for now least) last night with protests filed by AF Corse for the #51 and #52 GTE Pro cars rejected by the FIA Stewards for the event.
The Protests stated that the BoP values were incorrect, that was rejected on the basis that the relevant article (Article 20) of the WEC Technical regs is the only relevant and binding rule and that its over-arching nature “clearly states the WEC Committee is permitted to carry out any modifications which it may deem necessary at the absolute discretion of the WEC committee.”
