Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor clinched the World Endurance Championship drivers’ title despite collecting two penalties and finishing 10th in the Bahrain finale.
Vanthoor collected both five-second penalties for the number six Penske Porsche, one for a first-lap collision with the number 36 Alpine and another for passing the number 15 BMW off the track at turn seven.Their single-point haul offered the number 50 Ferrari crew of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen a chance to pip them to the title. However, a puncture sustained in contact with the same Alpine, driven by Charles Milesi, ultimately led to a point-less 11th place finish.
The number seven Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway – the first two of which were also title outsiders – retired early on due to problems with their GR010’s fuel pump. But Sebastien Buemi prevailed in a late fight with Matt Campbell in the other Penske Porsche to take the car he shared with Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa to victory.
Toyota’s third victory of the season means they beat Porsche to the constructors’ title.
The number 51 Ferrari of Alesandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi took the chequered flag in second place, but a swingeing post-race penalty demoted them to 14th, two laps down and last of the classified hypercars. The stewards added four minute and 55 seconds to their race time for using 28 tyres over the course of qualifying and the race, two more than the maximum permitted.
That promoted the Penske Porsche of Campbell and team mates Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki to second place. Peugeot claimed the final podium position courtesy of the number 93 car shared by Mikkel Jensen, Nico Mueller and Jean-Eric Vergne.
Both Alpines took the chequered flag in fourth and ninth positions. The number 20 BMW retired with a drivetrain problem shortly before the halfway point in the eight-hour race, leaving the sister number 15 car to take fifth.
The lone Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais, Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn claimed seventh. The first classified Ferrari 499P was the customer AF Corse machine shared by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman in eighth place.
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World Endurance Championship
- Penske Porsche poised to clinch title after winning incident-packed Fuji Six Hours
- Hyundai to launch hypercar racing programme under Genesis brand
- Court of Appeal rejects Ferrari’s challenge to WEC Six Hours of Spa result
- Kubica, Shwartzman and Ye grab first win ahead of charging Toyota at COTA
- Isotta Fraschini quits World Endurance Championship after five races
AlexS
3rd November 2024, 6:50
I could have been interested in this championship but every time i think of seeing BOP kills my interest. This year only saw a couple laps of Le Mans just for sake of nostalgia.
Davethechicken
3rd November 2024, 8:10
It is so in F1 too, in a different and more subtle form, with the % reduction in wind tunnel.
This year’s Le Mans was a great race and was refreshing to see so many Hypercars competing for the full 24h, in contrast to the ailing LMP1 of the preceding years.
But I do not overly like the BOP and the strict ban on any teams or drivers talking about it reeks.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
3rd November 2024, 9:46
WEC was at its best right before they restricted the fuel flow around the same time F1 did, and made sure the WEC cars got less fuel flow. Also, the whole penalizing diesels w/ longer pit stops was just wrong.
The rules don’t encourage competition, they destroy it, and as F1 shows, they are frequently used to derive better results for the stake holders, ticket sellers and commercial rights holders.