WEC News: Toyota wins 6 Hours of Bahrain season finale

Toyota Gazoo Racing completed a thrilling fightback to overcome challenges and retain its FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) title when the 2024 season came to a dramatic conclusion in the 8 Hours of Bahrain.

An incredible team effort and a dominant driving display saw Sébastien Buemi cut through the field to win the race in the #8 GR010 HYBRID he shares with Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, securing the team’s sixth successive manufacturers’ World Championship, by six points from Porsche.

In the Driver’s title, Porsche’s Kévin Estre, André Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor have clinched the FIA Hypercar World Endurance Drivers’ Championship.

The Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain was exciting and unpredictable from the outset, with the first major drama coming as early as lap ten when Buemi found himself punted out of the lead while lapping the #82 TF Sport Corvette. That dropped the Swiss star to seventh, and it was not until the closing stages that the pole-sitting #8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing GR010 clawed its way properly back into contention.

After leapfrogging Antonio Giovinazzi in the long-time race-leading #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P and Vanthoor in the champion-elect #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, Buemi embarked upon his final stint in second place, behind only Matt Campbell in the #5 Porsche Penske Hypercar. Exploiting his fresher tires, the four-time world champion went on a charge, setting a scintillating new fastest lap as he mercilessly hunted his prey. The decisive move came with 40 minutes remaining – after which, the result never looked in doubt.

“That was maybe my best drive,” Buemi reflected afterwards. “The early contact put us on the back foot, but it’s always a long game and our strategy was to make sure we saved some great tires for the end of the race. When I jumped back into the car, we were down in tenth  and I honestly thought we had no chance to come back, but with our tire advantage, I was able to make some moves and I knew the #5 would begin struggling at some point. In the end, everything fell into place perfectly.”

The #8 crew’s success not only represented the first victory from pole position in WEC’s headlining category this season, it also made it seven different winners from eight races and – far more significantly – secured Toyota its fourth consecutive Hypercar Manufacturers’ trophy.

Drivers’ honors, however, went the way of Porsche, with Estre, Lotterer and Vanthoor fulfilling their pre-event favorite tag by holding off their Ferrari and Toyota rivals to seal the deal. Astonishingly, none of the three championship contenders finished inside the points in Bahrain – for the first time in 2024 – but the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport trio’s results earlier on in the campaign proved more than sufficient to get the job done.

From sixth on the grid, a difficult opening tour saw the Porsche 963 slip down the order to 15^th, after which the team adopted a conservative approach, knowing that an eighth-place finish would be sufficient irrespective of anything else that happened. As it transpired, they did not even need that, with the #7 Toyota GR010 Hypercar falling victim to an intermittent fuel pump issue, and the #50 Ferrari never really featuring after first lap contact dropped it down the field.

The #6 Porsche’s race was similarly eventful, climbing the order to second only to then pick up a succession of late penalties that restricted the car to an 11^th-place finish – although by then, in the context of the Drivers’ title fight, the result of the race was somewhat immaterial.

“That was a horrible race!” reckoned Vanthoor. “We haven’t made many mistakes this year, but I made up for that today! Still, we have been laying the foundations for this season-long, with a great strategy and great car, and that’s why we are world champions now. It’s been an amazing year. I’ve never worked with a team like this before, from my team-mates to the mechanics and engineers. This is one of the best days of my life and I don’t think it’s really  sunk in yet. It’s something I will never forget.”

Behind the race-winning Toyota, the podium was completed by the #51 Ferrari and the #5 Porsche, as Peugeot and Alpine confirmed their recent strong form in fourth and fifth places with the  #93 9X8 and #35 Alpine A424 respectively.

Ferrari rolls the dice for LMGT3 glory

Vista AF Corse made it back-to-back successes in the LMGT3 class, in a race that could have gone a number of different ways – with multiple lead changes and an epic scrap for supremacy.

The key to the #55 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 crew’s victory was a bold late call on strategy, making one less pit-stop than most of their competitors. Courtesy of a masterclass in tire management, Alessio Rovera fended off a dual TF Sport Corvette threat in the final hour to cement the Italian outfit’s second consecutive triumph in the car he shares with François Heriau and Simon Mann.

Corvette crews completed the podium-finishers, with the #81 piloted by Charlie Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy pipping the sister #82 entry – which had to battle back from an early penalty for the contact with Buemi – to the runner-up spoils.

The United Autosports McLarens proved unable to replicate their qualifying form over the course of the eight hours as they ultimately fell away to sixth and eighth.

Race Results