WEC: Toyota wins in Bahrain to take producers’ crown; Lotterer, Vanthoor, Estre declare Drivers title
Toyota secured the FIA World Endurance Championship producer’s title with a victory on the season-concluding 8 Hours of Bahrain, whereas André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor, and Kévin Estre clinched the drivers’ crown regardless of ending exterior the highest ten
The #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing trio of Sébastien Buemi, Ryō Hirakawa, and Brendon Hartley took a superb win in an action-packed 8 Hours of Bahrain, with the race disrupted by two Security Automotive intervals that arrange dramatic shootouts in each WEC lessons.
Buemi was spun out of the lead by a GT automobile within the first hour, delivered an impressive drive to chase down the #5 Porsche Penske 963 and regained the lead within the remaining hour. This end result earned Toyota its fourth consecutive FIA Hypercar World Endurance Producers’ Championship title and sixth FIA WEC top-class producers title, together with the 2 producers’ titles gained within the LMP1 period.
The #6 Porsche Penske crew of Lotterer, Vanthoor, and Estre secured the drivers’ title regardless of ending tenth after two penalties within the remaining hour. Their title was unaffected by these setbacks, as their closest rivals, the #50 Ferrari AF Corse, managed solely eleventh place, and the #7 Toyota pushed by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, and Nyck de Vries retired mid-race.
Title winners Lotterer, Vanthoor, and Estre have been the one crew to attain two wins this season, in Qatar and Fuji, with Lotterer celebrating his second FIA WEC title in what was his remaining race as a Porsche manufacturing unit driver.
The #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and James Calado claimed second place. Nevertheless, a post-race penalty of 4min 55sec, for exceeding most permitted tyre allocation, demoted the trio to 14th place.
This elevated the #5 Porsche 963 of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, and Frédéric Makowiecki to second within the remaining outcomes, and the #93 Crew Peugeot TotalEnergies of Mikkel Jensen, Nico Müller and Jean-Éric Vergne to 3rd, granting the French producer its first and solely podium end of 2024.
In LMGT3, the #55 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari claimed its first win of the season. Alessio Rovera executed an exhilarating transfer to take the lead after a tense battle towards the #81 TF Sport Corvette and Iron Dames Lamborghini. Rovera held off a late cost from Eastwood within the #81 Corvette (shared by Eastwood with Rui Andrade, Tom van Rompuy), securing the victory for himself and teammates François Hériau and Simon Mann.
TF Sport achieved its greatest weekend of the season as its second automobile, the #82 Corvette pushed by Daniel Juncadella, Hiroshi Koizumi, and Sébastien Baud, took third place after recovering from an early penalty for contact with the race-winning #8 Toyota. The rest of the highest six included the Iron Lynx Lamborghini in fourth, the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche in fifth, and the #59 United Autosports McLaren in sixth.
