The Toyota factory team started the World Endurance Championship in the best possible way: its crews won a victorious double at the American track in Sebring. The hypercar Toyota GR010 Hybrid, tested in last year’s battles, did not disappoint this time either, and car No. 7 was the first to cross the finish line of the many-hour race.
The trio of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José-Maria López did an excellent job and once once more the riders received congratulations. Their crew was only 2.168 seconds ahead of their teammates, who were on the same hypercar No. 8 (it was piloted by Sebastien Buemi, Brandon Hartley and Rio Hirakawa).
The victory in the “1000 miles of Sebring” was already the 40th such achievement for the factory team of the Japanese concern in the WEC.
The Ferrari crew, who competed in the latest 499P hypercar and won the qualification, did not lead for long following the start and lost the first position already in the first hour of the race. But still, Antonio Fuoco, Niklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina managed to get to the podium, which can also be considered a success, because the race in Sebring was the debut for the AF Corse team in the most prestigious WEC category.
But in Maranello they started this project for the sake of victories and intend to win the championship, however, the race, which finished when it was well past midnight in Moscow, showed that Ferrari still had to work hard to get closer to implementing its ambitious plans. By the way, as in Formula 1, in the WEC race, the Italian team, among other things, was summed up by dubious tactics, as well as fines for various violations of the rules.
At the finish line, the best AF Corse crew lost two laps to the winners, but from the trio of Cadillac Racing (Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook), who took 4th place, they were only ten seconds ahead, and the American team at the end of the race confidently reduced the gap.
The Penske Porsche Motorsport factory team’s cars finished in 5th and 6th places, but they were already four laps behind the leaders. And only seventh in the class, but 15th in the overall standings, the second Ferrari crew reached the checkered flag. He lost a lot of time on repairs in the pits following a collision on the track with his AF Corse teammates, who drove a Ferrari sports car in the LMGTE Am class. The collision occurred regarding two hours before the end of the race.
The Vanwall Racing crew, which included Jacques Villeneuve, took 8th place in the Hypercar class, but only 30th in the overall standings – it was ahead of more than two dozen less powerful cars in the LMP2 and LMGTE Am categories. This happened both because of a suspension breakdown, which required a long repair, and because of piloting errors, by the way, made by Villeneuve as well.
Things were even worse for the Peugeot factory team, from the very start they were plagued by technical problems, and only one of their crews was classified.
In the LMP2 class, Team Jota’s No. 48 Oreca Prototype riders Ye Yifei, David Beckman and Will Stevens were the top performers. They ran the marathon confidently, leading almost the entire second half of the race, and eventually took 7th place overall, ahead of the United Autosports crew, who lost relatively little to them. But the third place in this category was taken by the Prema team, and its crew No. 63 included Daniil Kvyat. He and his teammates had a good race, making no mistakes and avoiding other troubles, so that in the next stages of the season we can expect more striking results from them.
The second race of the season, 6 Hours of Portimão, will take place at the Portuguese Algarve circuit on 16 April.
