Метка: Kevin Estre

Ferrari AF Corse sneaks past Toyota for win

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


In a thrilling finish to Sunday’s Lone Star Le Mans six-hour race on the Circuit of The Americas, a customer AF Corse-run 499P driven by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye, and Robert Shwartzman at Austin took the win after a battle with Toyota. All mere hours after Charles Leclerc’s Italian Grand Prix victory at Monza earlier in the day.

Shwartzman inherited the lead from the No. 7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH with 40 minutes of the race to run when Kamui Kobayashi took a drive-through penalty for a yellow-flag infringement. The Japanese driver, teamed with Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries, came out of the pits nine seconds behind the Ferrari but quickly made up ground. Kobayashi was still closing at the end, but ran out of time, ending up just 1.7 seconds behind at the checkered flag.

That closeness emphasized a pulse-pounding late stage of the race. Toyota appeared to have a win in the bag as the race entered its final stages, having managed to get the undercut on the yellow Ferrari, which had led the majority of the first two thirds of the Lone Star Le Mans. 

Kobayashi took the wheel for the final two hours and pulled way from Shwartzman, building up a lead of 10 seconds only to lose it as penance for ignoring yellow flags at Turn 11.

The No. 83 AF CORSE Ferrari 499P Hypercar

The No. 83 AF CORSE Ferrari 499P Hypercar

Photo by: JEP

Third place at COTA went to the Le Mans-winning factory Ferrari crew of Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen, and Antonio Fuoco. They lacked the pace of the sister works 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessasndro Pier Guidi — but the second 499P posted a rare retirement for the factory team. Driveline issues (that followed a collision with an LMGT3 runner that had damaged a wheel rim) and then a spin while Giovinazzi was lapping one of the Peugeot 9X8 2024 LMHs conspired against the team.

Cadillac took fourth — its best result of the season — with the Ganassi-run V-Series.R shared by Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn.

Alpine followed in fifth in the A424 LMDh shared by Ferdinand Habsburg, Paul-Loup Chatin and Charles Milesi. They fought back from an early penalty after Habsburg locked up on the first lap and was penalized for the contact with Bamber at Turn 12 at the end of the long back straight.

The Signatech-run Alpine benefitted from a late penalty for Kevin Estre in the championship-leading Porsche 963 LMDh for a yellow-flag infringement, which left the Penske-run car co-driven by Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer sixth at the flag.

The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar of Earl Bamber, and Alex Lynn

The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar of Earl Bamber, and Alex Lynn

Photo by: JEP

Vanthoor, Lotterer, and Estre fought through the field from 14th on the grid — with Estre surviving a clash with Sebastien Buemi in the second Toyota in the race’s fifth hour. Buemi, on an outlap, made contact with the Porsche as he moved over on the back straight to protect his position. He continued to move to the left, resulting in a second contact. The Toyota sustained a rear puncture and bodywork damage, before being given a 30-second stop-go penalty for causing a collision that left the car 15th and last of the classified finishers in Hypercar.

The best of the WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDhs — the No. 20 car driven by Rene Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde — was also hit with a late penalty of 100s for an energy in infringement. It lost a top-six position as a result, ending up in 13th at the finish.

The LMGT3 class was dominated by the American-flagged Heart of Racing Aston Martin squad. Its Vantage GT3 crewed by Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli, and Alex Riberas crossed the line with almost half a minute in hand over its nearest competitor to take the victory. Bronze-rated James, who’s also Heart of Racing’s team principal, laid the foundation for the squad’s first WEC victory since joining the series last year. The Briton converted pole position in the race lead and raced away from Sarah Bovy in the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan EVO2.

The No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P failed to finish

The No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P failed to finish

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Heart of Racing’s run to victory was made easier when a clash between the Iron Lynx-run Lamborghini (which Bovy shared with Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting) and the best of the TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R (the No. 81 entry driven by Tom van Rompuy, Rui Andrade, and Charlie Eastwood) took both cars from contention.

That allowed the two Manthey-run Porsche 911 GT3-Rs — running 1-2 in the class points coming into the Austin race — to come through to claim second and third positions. All in spite of receiving a Balance of Performance hit and carrying significant success balance.

Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm, and Klaus Bachler took second with 30 kg of success ballast, while the sister car of Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring, and Richard Lietz took third with 25 kg after the Shahin received a drive-through for a track limits violation.

Vanthoor, Lotterer, and Estre still lead the championship on 125 points; Molina, Nielsen, Fuoco and de Vries and Kobayashi tied on 113 points.



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Porsche drivers claim rivals were sandbagging before Le Mans 24 Hours

Опубликовано от ASPPA IMAGES ANO


Porsche was deemed by many as the favourites to take victory in the 92nd edition of the French endurance classic, having won two of the three previous World Endurance Championship rounds at Qatar and Spa, and also looked rapid in testing and qualifying at La Sarthe.

Toyota’s technical director David Floury was even quoted as saying that Porsche would have done a “pretty bad job” if it didn’t end up winning the race, so impressed was he with the pace of the 963 in testing.

And although the expanded three-car factory Penske-run squad enjoyed a number of stints at the front in the race, including in the afternoon on Sunday, there seemed a clear disparity in performance to LMH cars from Ferrari and Toyota.

In the end, fourth was the best result Porsche could manage on its second appearance at Le Mans in the Hypercar class, as Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer narrowly missed out on a podium finish in the #6 963 LMDh machine.

Speaking after the finish, Estre hit back at the comments made earlier in the week by Toyota, claiming that it was the Japanese manufacturer who had underachieved by losing the victory fight to Ferrari.

“It makes me laugh, the Toyotas saying after the Test Day that if we don’t win this race, it’s because we’ve messed up. Today, they’re the ones who messed up,” Estre told Motorsport.com.

“In the end, we were flat out from the first day, and I don’t think they were. We didn’t have false hopes, we were hoping for a good race and we had it. We gave everything we had, but it wasn’t enough.”

#4 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy

#4 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Mathieu Jaminet, Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Christensen also suggested that Toyota and Ferrari turned up the wick during the business part of the race week, allowing them to overhaul Porsche and engage in a straight duel for the win.

“I think the others turned up the pace,” Christensen, who came home in sixth in the #5 Porsche he shared with Frederic Makowiecki and Matt Campbell, told Motorsport.com.

“The others turned up the pace when it mattered and we gave everything from the start.”

Porsche motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach wouldn’t be drawn on other manufacturers hiding their true pace prior to the race. However, he did concur that the pecking order was very different to what was seen in practice.

“I can only say we went through our programme in practice,” he told Motorsport.com. “We did everything. We thought it was the right thing to do and we showed we can do. If other competitors didn’t want to show everything in the practice that’s of no meaning to me.

“We do what we consider to be right and that’s our programme. Yes, in the race it did look a bit different to the practice but that’s not a problem to me.”

#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor

#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Straightline speed deficit holds back Porsche

The Porsche Penske squad, like other teams, did make some costly strategic mistakes as the weather remained unpredictable for much of the enduro. However, it also lacked the pace to consistently challenge Ferrari and Toyota, particularly in the final two hours as rain returned at La Sarthe.

Porsche’s LMDh director Urs Kuratle revealed that the 963 LMDh suffered from a mysterious lack of top speed, a problem that is compounded at Le Mans by its long straights and rapid acceleration zones.

“We were lacking speed on the straight,” Kuratle explained in an interview with Motorsport.com. “That’s something we need to understand where it’s coming from, from acceleration, from aero efficiency, I don’t know.

“We are not talking much, we are 2 or 3km/h [down], so that’s not really a lot. But these gaps or these differences at Le Mans are even worse. The straights are bigger than on normal race tracks. It’s something that we will analyse.”

Kuratle said he was proud of the effort put in by Porsche Penske Motorsport on its second appearance in the Hypercar class at Le Mans but conceded that the squad was “simply not good enough” to take the win.

“Not the result we wanted,” he said. «I’m proud of the team and that includes all the drivers, engineers, mechanics, everybody involved.

“It’s the highlight of the year for us in the WEC and if you come fourth that’s not what you want. Maybe you ask why [we finished only fourth], we were simply not good enough that’s what it was.

“One or the other [strategic] decision we would have made differently but that is the same for all the teams. And at the end of the day 40s or however many seconds were missing to the victory, which is amazing after 24 hours.

“At the end of the day it wasn’t enough.”

Additional reporting by Ben Vinel

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