FIA WEC Awards presented after ‘Rookie Test’
The end of season beach party at Bahrain saw not only the Champions of the 2023 FIA WEC crowned in Hypercar, as well as the outgoing LMP2 and GTE Am classes, but also a trio of special awards.
Prema Racing’s Iron Dame Doriane Pin was crowned as the WEC ‘Revelation of the Year’ after an impressive debut season in the World Championship in the #63 Oreca 07.
Sports Racer of the Year went to AF Corse driver Thomas Flöhr after a season when the 63-year-old Swiss driver’s form saw a distinct upward curve including a famous GTE Am win at Fuji.
WEC Personality of the Year went to GM Sports Car Racing programme manager Laura Wonthrop Klauser in a season where she oversaw the debut of the Cadillac Racing Hypercar programme and the title-winning Corvette Racing campaign in GTE AM.
There was special recognition too for Proton Competition’s Christian Ried, as he stepped down from competition as a driver after 85 consecutive FIA WEC races.
Team Peugeot TotalEnergies meanwhile, took the DHL Sustainability Endurance Award for their efforts and record in sustainability across the season.
Another award handed out last weekend was Goodyear’s overall Wingfoot Award. The overall prize is handed to the most consistent LMP2 driver (measured by average lap time over two consecutive stints) during the season.
Albert Costa took the top Wingfoot Award prize for the 8 Hours of Bahrain, with a stint average lap time of 1:56.96, 0.172 quicker than Filipe Albuquerque. However, Albuquerque took home the overall prize. The United Autosports driver won the award after an incredibly consistent season, narrowly beating WRT’s Robert Kubica.
“Congratulations to Filipe Albuquerque on an excellent LMP2 campaign in 2023. We really didn’t know which way it would go between him and Kubica at the final round, and I’m glad it added an extra layer of intrigue to the race,” Ben Crawley, Director of Motorsport EMEA, Goodyear, commented. “Also, congratulations to Kubica and his Team WRT teammates Louis Delétraz and Rui Andrade for taking the 2023 LMP2 title.”
The Wingfoot Award will continue in WEC next season, though it will be handed out to drivers in the LMGT3 category, which Goodyear will supply tyres for going forward.
The dress code at the party was ‘all white’ and whilst there could be some honourable mentions there’s little doubt that the team that would have taken the trophy had there been one would have been TF Sport, whose pit crew arrived dressed as a cricket team. Better still they have had significantly more success on track than the England team have had at the crease!
First WEC #46
The #31 Team WRT Oreca was, somewhat unusually, renumbered as #46 for the post-race ‘Rookie Test’. Unusual as the Test is still regarded as part of the WEC event and the cars involved are effectively restricted to the entries from the race meeting proper.
The inclusion of Valentino Rossi though, recognised by his iconic racing number, was likely too big a headline to miss and the Italian Moto GP legend is set to be a very significant draw to the already booming FIA WEC.
Of minor interest is that there has never been a full-season #46 in the history of the FIA WEC to this point.
Conversely, the car running at the test as the #9 Prema Racing car was actually run by the car’s new owners Proton Competition, both of the Italian teams Orecas and their associated equipment passed over to Proton for the test and subsequent transport to Sepang for the Asian Le Mans Series next month.
Both cars were de-liveried in the paddock before being packed away for transport and will now form part of a four-car fleet of LMP2s for Proton who made their debut in the class this season, scoring a famous last-gasp win at the Rolex 24 Hours.
Double History Making Porsche
Another Proton-owned car with success on its cv will be heading home to Germany, the #85 Iron Dames car became the first WEC winning car for an all-female crew and took the win in the very last race in GTE.
The Porsche will go home to join the combined collection of 16 Porsche 911 RSRs owned by the team, a celebratory photocell is planned with the whole fleet together for the very first time before one of the cars is sold on, Claudio Schiavoni will likely purchase his car from the 2023 FIA WEC.
Asked whether the win for the #85 might see that car go to the Iron Lynx co-owner instead, Christian Ried explained that the very same car was also his ELMS Championship-winning Porsche from 2022, as such that will be staying firmly in the hands of the Ried family!
Whilst the Iron Dames took the race win it was left to AF Corse’s Christoph Ulrich, who took the opportunity of the test to have one last fling in a GTE Ferrari, to have the honour of being the very last driver to run in a GTE car in an official WEC session,
‘His’ #21 Ferrari was the last car to pit at the end of Sunday’s afternoon session. Ulrich is keen to be back in the saddle with AF Corse in one of its LMGT3 campaigns in the near future!
Bahrain bumps and bruises
A couple of clarifications on cars that suffered issues during the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
The #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin suffered an engine failure that ended the race, and the season for the UK-based Omani-flagged effort.
The #4 ‘Vanwall’ effort suffered multiple delays in the wake of damage potentially caused after the car’s slow start saw it then collected by one, and then both United LMP2 cars.
The car was running down on power for much of the race, even beyond the reported power deficit that team sources have been reporting for much of the season as the car struggles with cooling issues, the team finding a broken exhaust, changing a coil pack and potentially to a broken airbox in lengthy late race stops as the car struggled home after losing almost an hour.
Hypercar tyre testing
Whilst the FIA WEC teams departed for home, several of the Hypercar squads stayed on in Bahrain for a major Michelin test. Toyota, Ferrari, Cadillac, Porsche, Peugeot and Vanwall all fielded a car apiece.
