UPDATE: A string of post-race stewards decisions have been added to the FIA WEC noticeboard. This includes the disqualification of the #93 Peugeot 9X8, which dropped from second to seventh at the end of the race after running out of fuel.
The statement reads:
“The stewards, having considered the matter extensively, determined the following:
“The competitor committed a breach of the technical regulation (art. 5.3.2 of LMH Technical regulation) by non-rejoining its pits after having used the electric dc of the MGUK. Due to this violation, and the choice of the competitor not to comply with this technical rule hoping to be classified, car 93 was able to cross the line before stopping definitively in the straight, unable to rejoin the parc fermé.
“However, a competitor cannot obtain the benefit of any violation he committed with regard to the relevant regulation. Therefore, the stewards determined that the fact of having car 93 crossing the line cannot be taken into account with regard to the relevant sporting regulations.
“Moreover, car 93 was not able to rejoin the parc fermé under the conditions stated in articles 15.1.1 and 15.1.3 of 2024 FIA WEC Sporting regulations.
“Consequently, the stewards decided for these two motivations, joined and separately to impose the disqualification of car 93.”
The final classification is not yet available. However, with the #93 disqualified the #50 AF Corse Ferrari looks set to be promoted to seventh, with the #99 Proton Porsche up to 10th and therefore into a points-paying position. Peugeot has the right to appeal.
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 claimed a historic victory for the team and the LMDh formula in FIA WEC competition under the floodlights tonight in the Qatar 1812KM, after late drama resulted in a 1-2-3 for the German brand.
Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre put in a commanding performance, surviving a late scare in the closing stages when contact with one of the LMGT3 Lexus RC F GT3s knocked off the car’s left-side number panel, to lead home the all-Porsche podium.
The result marks Penske’s first win as a team in the WEC, the first win for the 963 in the championship and the first win for an LMDh-spec car in Hypercar competition. The victory also adds to the 963’s perfect start to 2024, which began with a victory in the IMSA-opening Rolex 24 Hours in January. The Porsche Penske operation looks truly transformed after the winter break and will head to Imola full of confidence.
While not an all-time classic, the 2024 season opener at the Lusail International Circuit provided a milestone result for the Hypercar formula, which saw the formbook turned on its head. After the 2023 season saw Toyota and Ferrari almost exclusively set the pace at each round, today’s race became a battle between the Porsche Penske 963 and Peugeot’s #93 9X8 in the final send-off for the first iteration of the French OEM’s wingless challenger.
After the #50 Ferrari led the opening laps after a rocket start for Miguel Molina, Nico Müller steered the #93 to the lead by the end of the first hour. The #6 then took control of the race in the second hour, when Müller ran wide at Turn 1, letting Laurens Vanthoor through.
From then on when the race settled down it essentially became a chase between the #6 and #93, with the gap expanding and contracting as the conditions changed and the tyre strategies played out. At one point early in the second half of the race, the margin shrunk to under 10 seconds, but the Porsche was able to keep the 9X8 at arm’s length and pull away when the sun went down.
In the end, the #6 crossed the line 34 seconds clear of the competition after a late stop to place a new number sticker on the car.
“It was a bit crazy, to be honest. I had a massive hit with the Lexus, we had a lot of vibration after that and no grip. It made it spicy to the end. But the whole team did an amazing job, no issues. I am really happy with where we are today compared to where we started last year,” race winner Kevin Estre said.
The contact with the Lexus and the subsequent damage to the Porsche made it tough to drive and a tense watch for everyone in the garage.
“The contact was side-by-side at a high-speed corner and race control judged it to be the fault of the GT car. We had to react and decide what we wanted to do. Everyone rose to the occasion there,” commented Jonathan Diuguid, the managing director of Team Penske.
It wasn’t the Peugeot that took second after a loss of power in the dying seconds of the race for Jean-Eric Vergne made it an all-Porsche podium. It was a crushing blow that ruined what looked to be the 9X8 and Peugeot TotalEnergies’ most convincing showing. It was revealed post-race that the Peugeot thad fallen victim to a “fuelling issue” though whether this was a human error – or a more likely technical failure is not yet known.
“I feel really sorry for them,” commented Andre Lotterer, who finally has a win as Porsche factory driver, after the race. “They showed real pace today.”
Finishing second after 335 laps of the 5.4km circuit was eventually the #12 HERTZ Team JOTA Porsche of Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Callum Illot after what was easily the British team’s strongest performance since graduating to the top class.
After the dramatic finale, Ilott finished just one second ahead of Matt Campbell in the pole-sitting #5 Penske Porsche, which struggled with vibration issues early but nabbed third to make it a double podium for Penske. It also resulted in the first WEC overall podium sweep for a single manufacturer since Audi acheieved the same feat in Spa back in 2013.
The late heartbreak for the #93 Peugeot, which limped home down to seventh, promoted Cadillac Racing’s V-Series.R to fourth.
Cadillac believed it was in with a chance pre-race, confident the V-Series.R’s long run pace would keep it in the fight. But its plans unravelled at Turn 1 on Lap 1 when Alex Lynn tagged the #94 Peugeot, damaging its front-left corner. While it wasn’t entirely clear from the TV footage, Lynn’s teammate Sebastien Bourdais said the car snapped on Lynn because he was hit from the rear by the #38 HERTZ Team JOTA Porsche.
The contact forced the team to change the car’s front and rear at its first stop, dropping it down the order. But a strong run from Lynn, Bourdais and Earl Bamber saw the car eventually finish fifth.
On pace, Ferrari may have been a contender for the victory if the race was run again. However, all three 499Ps were delayed and were forced into recovery drives to salvage as many points as possible.
The #50 led the race in the opening hour but was handed a drive-through for crossing the white line at pit-in early on, failed to find the pace to climb back up the order and crossed the line eighth. On the other side of the garage, the #51 then needed a rear clip change after James Calado tagged an LMGT3 car, which sent the rear bodywork flying into the air after becoming dislodged. It finished 14th.
AF Corse’s privately-funded #83 499P enjoyed the most impressive outing of the three, but after threatening to stay in the running for a podium in the opening hours, contact for Robert Shwartzman meant it too needed a new rear end at a pit stop. This cost valuable time, though it did cross the line as the highest-placed Italian prototype in fifth.
Perhaps the greatest surprise was just how anonymous Toyota’s GR010 HYBRIDs were once the race got underway. After years of dominance from the Japanese make, it was a strange sight to see both its cars struggle to stay on the lead lap in the opening hours of the race.
The #7 started on the front row but was swallowed up by the pack in the opening sequence and ended up a lap down before the halfway mark. The second half of the race saw the car in the mix at times, but nobody at Toyota Gazoo Racing will be satisfied with sixth.
The 2023 title-winning #8 sister car struggled too, even more than the #7. It finished way down in 10th, despite not suffering from any notable issues.
All week long Toyota played down its chances. The team believed that the weight increase and power decrease it was handed for the race – plus general improvements in form and execution from its competition – would make it a challenge to score points.
“It’s the most weight sensitive track of the season, so even though Toyota performed so well in Qualifying, they struggled here,” Lotterer told DSC when asked if he was surprised by the Japanese team’s lack of form.
Following a quiet run in the test and practice, Nyck de Vries’ heroics in Qualifying provided a brief flash of hope. But in the end, once the race got underway it became clear that this was not going to be a memorable weekend. Instead, this circuit, which is new to the championship, and the tweaked balance of performance values for the race, appeared to favour the characteristics of the 963, V-Series.R and 9X8.
As for the new cars, as expected this race had the look of an extended test session for BMW, Alpine, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini. The reliability of most of them was impressive, though the #15 BMW ended up in the garage briefly in the ninth hour and the Tipo6-C was forced into retirement with front suspension woes after 157 laps.
The #36 Alpine A424 was the only one of them to finish in the points in ninth, but it was overall an encouraging debut for the new LMDh prototypes which will almost certainly improve rapidly as the season goes on.
The only real concern at this point is just how far the Isotta and Lamborghini were off the pace. The Isotta was multiple laps down when it retired in the second half of the race, having been dealt a 200-second stop-go for a technical infringement, and the SC63 crossed the line five laps behind the winning car.
It did however finish ahead of the #15 BMW that hit trouble late on, the #94 Peugeot which spent 30 minutes in the garage with battery issues and the #38 JOTA Porsche which retired in its pit box after Oliver Rasmussen couldn’t get the car fired in the final hour.
The LMGT3 race at Qatar wasn’t quite the door-banging thriller that many of the teams expected before the lights went out. But it generated plenty of talking points.
It was won by the #92 Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche 911 LMGT3 R 992 after an engrossing battle with the Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler put together a masterful, fault-free performance in the Lithuanian team’s FIA WEC debut.
The performance continued the team’s title-winning form from the Asian Le Mans Series over the winter and handed it an early championship lead.
Behind it was a memorable 1-2 finish for Aston Martin’s new-for-2024 Vantage LMGT3, as D’Station’s example took third behind Heart of Racing.
