Weekend Recap: Toyota Dominates 8H Bahrain & More
Results from last weekend's FIA World Endurance Championship season finale...
Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi won their second consecutive FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar world drivers’ title with a dominant victory in the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
The No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid converted pole position to win with a margin of 47.516 seconds over the sister No. 7 car of Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi.
Conway, Lopez and Kobayashi needed to win in Bahrain to have any hopes of wrestling the title away from their stablemates, but suffered a significant setback on the opening lap when Conway was tagged into a spin by the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Earl Bamber.
The No. 7 car plummeted to the rear of the field as a result, but a strong recovery stint from the Englishman saw the car charge back into the top three by the start of the second hour.
Co-driver Kobayashi then captured second place with a move on the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of James Calado at Turn 1 early in the third hour, but the No. 7 crew ultimately proved unable to challenge their teammates for victory.
The result marks the third consecutive Hypercar drivers’ crown for Toyota. Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa took the title last year, while Kobayashi, Lopez and Conway were crowned champions in 2021.
The Japanese marque had already clinched the manufacturers’ title at Fuji last month.
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Historic GTE-Am Win “Quite Emotional” for Iron Dames
Michelle Gatting said the Iron Dames’ historic GTE-Am class win in Saturday’s FIA World Endurance Championship season finale in Bahrain proves that the all-female squad is capable of winning races in top-level sports car racing, labeling it “exactly what we want to achieve.”
Gatting, driving the No. 85 Porsche 911 RSR-19, held off Casper Stevenson’s No. 777 D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GTE in the closing stages of the 8 Hours of Bahrain to take the final victory of the GTE era.
More notably, it makes Gatting, Rahel Frey and Sarah Bovy the first all-female crew in championship history to secure a race win.
Gatting said after the race that the victory was an emotional one for the team, adding that it proves that they are capable of taking wins in world championship competition.
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LMP2 Champions ‘Didn’t Expect’ to Win Race in WRT 1-2
Louis Deletraz admitted that he and co-drivers Robert Kubica and Rui Andrade didn’t expect to win Saturday’s 8 Hours of Bahrain, after having placed their focus on securing the LMP2 title following a challenging start to the weekend for the No. 41 Team WRT entry.
The trio walked away as the final LMP2 champions in the FIA World Endurance Championship, having needed to only finish eighth or higher in the race.
It came despite the No. 31 car starting tenth out of the 11-car class after initially struggling for pace on Thursday and into Friday.
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Shwartzman Quickest in Bahrain Rookie Test
Robert Shwartzman set the quickest time in Sunday’s FIA World Endurance Championship rookie test in Bahrain, putting the Ferrari 499P atop the time charts.
The Ferrari Formula 1 reserve driver reeled off a best lap of 1:48.559 in Sunday’s afternoon session to edge out the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963 of morning session pacesetter Will Stevens buy 0.066 seconds.
It marked Shwartzman’s first time in the Dallara-chassied prototype that he shared at the test with Lilou Wadoux and Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Wadoux was the second quickest rookie driver on the day, setting a 1:49.488 lap time, also in the afternoon.
Nico Varrone, in the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R, laid down a 1:50.048 to end up third quickest amongst the top-class newcomers.
The newly crowned WEC GTE-Am champion was ahead of Julien Andlauder, in the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche that he shared with Rene Binder, who set a quicker time than the Porsche factory driver.