Toyota Gazoo Racing’s #8 GR010 HYBRID snatched both the victory and the Hypercar Manufacturers’ World Championship from Porsche’s grasp under the floodlights tonight in the 2024 FIA WEC 8 Hours of Bahrain, after a pair of safety cars and a Full-Course Yellow in the closing stages created high drama.
This year’s season finale came alive in the final three hours, following a relatively quiet first half, as the string of neutralisations kept the field bunched up and set up a sprint finish. Battles raged and down the order in both categories with time winding down and the ambient temperature falling, producing a number of surprise results, which in the case of Hypercar, had major championship implications.
As for the titles, the #8’s charge to the front in the final hour saw Toyota claim Manufacturer honours out of nowhere. The pole-sitting car looked down and out when it was turned into a spin in the opening hour by a TF Sport Corvette, costing the 2023 champions valuable track position. But they never gave up, and through a combination of willpower and tyre strategy, found a way back into contention.
When Sebastien Buemi was strapped in for the run to the flag, he was in the zone and on a mission. After the final round of pit stops, which saw the car climb to second, he found himself in a straight fight with Porsche’s #5 car for the championship.
The Swiss then promptly caught and passed Matt Campbell with a bold move for the win with 39 minutes remaining. The Australian was unable to respond once Buemi found a way through and eventually crossed the line third.
Second place slipped away in heartbreaking fashion on the final lap, when Antonio Giovinazzi found a way past in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari, which led the majority of the race but lost precious time to a longer final pit stop.
“It might be the best drive of my career, I knew I had to take risks,” Buemi said after the race.
“We saved tyres for the end and Seb delivered,” added teammate Brendon Hartley. “We wanted to spoil the Porsche party and we did, it feels good to get a win going into the winter break.”
Despite Toyota’s miraculous turnaround tonight, all was not lost for Porsche. In the Drivers’ title race Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor clung on in the #6 963, despite finishing outside the top 10.
It was a rollercoaster outing for the trio, who endured their worst result of the season after spending more than half the race recovering from a messy start.
Vanthoor – who was behind the wheel when the lights went out – dropped from sixth to dead last on Lap 1 following contact with title rival Miguel Molina in the #50 Ferrari at Turn 4. A metronomic run for multiple hours put them back in podium contention, but their hard work was undone when a drive-through penalty for an FCY violation and two five-second time penalties for incidents dropped them to 11th.
Luckily, an equally disastrous outing for their title rivals in the #7 Toyota and #50 Ferrari, allowed them to seal it with a non-points finish.
The #7 retired with a recurring fuel pump issue, which struck hard after Nyck de Vries took the lead in the fifth hour and the #50 limped home in 12th.
The Le Mans winning 499P failed to feature here, it struggled for pace after the contact at Turn 1 forced Miguel Molina in for an early nose change, and suffered a puncture when it was hit by an Alpine in the penultimate hour.
“It was a horrible race, a really horrible one,” Vanthoor said after becoming a Hypercar World Champion. “But we did the baseline for this throughout the season, with great strategy and a great car, that’s why we are world champions today.
“It has to sink in, it’s one of the best days of my life. Besides this race we were flawless, we were the perfect group.”
For Peugeot, today’s race didn’t produce a fairytale end to its tough season, but the #93 finishing fourth will serve as a confidence boost for the team ahead of the winter. Mikkel Jensen pushed hard at the end and managed to beat the #35 Alpine home.
UPDATE – DECISION NO. 40 has seen the podium result change, the initially second placed Ferrari 499P has been penalised with a 4 minutes and 55 second time penalty, converted to two laps removed from their final completed distance, after it emerged that the team had used a total of 28 tyres between qualifying and the race, two more than the permitted maximum of 26.
That drops the Ferrari to 14th and last finisher in Hypercar and elevates the #93 to the podium, the team’s best result of the season after a fighting fourth at Fuji.
The revised result sees the points gap in the Manufacturers title drop to just to points in the final standings, down from six points before the penalty for the #51
In LMGT3 there was high drama too. Vista AF Corse’s #55 Ferrari held off TF Sport’s Corvettes to claim the Italian team’s second victory of the season and second in a row after the sister car won in Fuji.
Alessio Rovera was masterful late in the race, surviving a lengthy duel with an emotionally charged Charlie Eastwood, who was racing this weekend in memory of his late father.
“We managed to do it, my teammates (Simon Mann and Francois Heriau) did an amazing job managing the tyres early, because the key was the last three hours,” Rovera said. “I had new tyres at the end and the fight with the Corvette was really nice, it was fair because we didn’t touch. It’s a win we deserved because we were really close to podiums all season.”
Eastwood followed Rovera home in the #81, crossing the line three seconds back, ahead of Daniel Juncadella in the #82 example. It wasn’t a win, but it was by far the most impressive outing from the new Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R in WEC competition yet.
“It kind of sums up our season again – a story of what could have been without the safety car,” Eastwood’s teammate Rui Andrade summarised. “We were ahead by about 40 seconds beforehand. We were in a good rhythm and had good pace. But I was kind of in no-man’s land because we didn’t take tyres on my second stint.
“We were hoping the strategy would pay off, and Charlie would get new tyres and back into the lead. Nevertheless, I’m really happy to finish the season with such strong races back-to-back-to-back. Since COTA, the car has been super-strong and the team has done a great job making it faster and faster.”
Off the podium, the #60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini came from nowhere to take fourth and Morris Schuring steered Manthey EMA’s Porsche to fifth.
Further down the order, the two McLarens that locked out the front row in Qualifying fell away after a strong start to the race. The #59 ended up sixth and the #95 dropped to eighth.
They finished ahead of the title-winning Pure Rxcing Porsche which could only muster ninth, and both the Iron Dames Lamborghini and Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
All three looked to be in the running for victory in the second half of the race due to the timing of the first safety car, which fell at the right time and saw them rise up the order. But in the late-race melee, they faded and failed to retain top five positions.
DECISION NO. 41, with 10000 of that suspended against any further infringement by end of net season after failing to present a declared list of approved tyres by the regulatory deadline of 3 hours before race start today.
