Porsche Penske Motorsport’s #6 963 has taken firm control of the FIA WEC Qatar 1812KM at the Lusail International Circuit, leading the race by 27 seconds after five hours of racing.
The #6 took the lead of the race in the second hour, when Nico Müller in the #93 Peugeot ran wide at Turn 1, letting Laurens Vanthoor through. Since then the Porsche has gradually gapped and lapped most of the field. The #93 remains in contention, however, after stints from Müller, Mikkel Jensen and now Jean-Eric Vergne.
Third and making it three Porsche 963s in the top three is the #5 from Penske, which lost a lot of time early in the race due to a tyre-related vibration issue. The #12 963 from HERTZ Team JOTA, which has had a metronomic run to this point, is the final car on the lead lap in fourth, 31 seconds behind and still very much in the fight.
Drama hit both factory AF Corse Ferraris after the first hour, which resulted in the privately-funded #83 example emerging as the best-placed 499P into the second half of the race. Robert Shwartzman is currently aboard and finds himself up to fifth, the first of the cars now a lap down.
The #51 Ferrari ended up losing its rear end after James Calado made contact with an LMGT3 car, forcing him in for an unplanned stop, dropping it to 19th after repairs. Since then the car has leapfrogged the penalty-delayed Isotta Fraschini Tipo6-C and troubled #94 Peugeot and remains locked in a duel at the bottom of the screens with the Iron Lynx Lamborghini.
Meanwhile, the sister #50, which led the opening laps of the race, sits ninth and is on a recovery drive after receiving a penalty. Miguel Molina was handed a drive-through for crossing the white line at pit-in during the second hour. The car has since recovered after dropping to 14th.
It’s been an uncharacteristically tough race so far for Toyota’s GR010 HYBRIDs, which have struggled to find outright performance to this point as the track evolves. The #7, which started second, is now seventh overall and off the lead lap.
Toyota’s sister car is having an even tougher time, currently running 14th and in danger of falling two laps down.
“We’re off the pace at the moment,” #8 driver Brendon Hartley said. “I didn’t have a great first stint, and I damaged the tyre yesterday. We’re currently where we started, we’re going to rely on the others to make mistakes. We don’t have the pace. We’re going to have to analyse this after. It’s not looking good at the moment.”
Cadillac on the other hand, is recovering nicely from its incident at the start which cost the team precious time at its first pit stop. The V-Series.R is up to eighth, in part due to pace, and in part due to attrition around it.
While it’s been a fairytale run for the #93 Peugeot through the first five hours of the race, the sister #94 car has been in the wars. Its day went from bad to worse at the end of the fifth hour when the mechanics pushed it back into the garage to work on a battery issue.
LMGT3 meanwhile, has seen its order shuffled throughout the first half of this race as teams work to get their Bronze drivers through their minimum drive time.
The first two drivers to complete their minimum two-hour 55-minute stints were Ian James from Heart of Racing and Ahmad Al Harthy from Team WRT. James completed a short fourth stint to finish his drive time, while WRT kept Ahmad Al harty in for a full fourth stint before Valentino Rossi’s first run.
It was an iron-man effort from the Omani driver, who has steered the #46 BMW into contention.
“We had an option to keep me in the car for my entire driving time, they kept asking me how I was feeling,” he said. “I told them if it works for the strategy I will stay in.
“45 minutes in I found out I had no water,” he revealed. “It was tough, luckily I had pit stops when I could drink. But I was just motivated to do the best job for my team.”
This means that the Heart of Racing Aston Martin and #46 WRT BMW look to be in the fight for the podium places as the sun goes down.
For now, though, the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari with Davide Rigon on board leads the sister #55 of Alessio Rovera, who is a further 16 seconds back. The Heart of Racing Aston Martin is fourth behind the #46, but like the #92 Pure Rxcing Porsche, it had already completed its sixth pit stop at the turn of the hour. Both cars should shuffle to the top early in the coming laps as the pit cycle comes to a close.
The third hour saw disaster strike for TF Sport, when Rui Andrade in the pole-sitting #81 Corvette stopped at pit-in with a gear shift issue. The car needed to be pushed down the pit lane and back into the race by the TF mechanics as it plummeted down the order to 17th after a 17-minute stop which cost the car 10 laps.
The #77 Proton Mustang GT also hit trouble, Zach Robichon was forced into the pits for a tyre change after suffering a puncture. Ben Barker is aboard and is circulating down in 12th. The #91 Manthey EMA Porsche too has dropped to the bottom of the timing screens after technical issues in the fifth hour.
The Bend Motorsport Park-branded 911 ran as high as second early on but had its race ruined by the need for the team to change the car’s throttle actuator. It remains in the garage into Hour 6.
