The factory Toyota team started the World Endurance Championship in the best possible way: the teams won a victorious double at the US track in Sebring. Tested in last year’s battles, the hypercar Toyota GR010 Hybrid did not disappoint this time either, and the No. 7 car crossed the finish line first in the many-hour race.
The trio of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and José-Maria López did an excellent job and once again the riders were congratulated. Their crew was only 2.168 seconds ahead of their teammates, who were in the same No. 8 hypercar (it was driven 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, which entered the latest hypercar 499P and won qualifying, led not long after the start and lost the first position in the first hour of the race. Nevertheless, Antonio Fuoco, Niklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina managed to get on the podium, which can also be considered a success, as 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, but the race, which ended well after midnight in Moscow, showed that Ferrari still had to work hard to get closer to the execution of his ambitious plans. By the way, as in Formula 1, in the WEC race the Italian team was penalized, among other things, for dubious tactics, as well as fines for various violations of the rules.
At the finish, the top AF Corse crew lost two laps to the winners, but the trio of Cadillac Racing (Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook) who took 4th place were only ten seconds ahead, and the American team confidently closed the gap at the end of the race.
The Penske Porsche Motorsport works team cars finished in 5th and 6th place, but they were already four laps behind the leaders. And only seventh in class, but 15th overall, the second Ferrari squad reached the black and white checkered flag. He lost a lot of time making repairs in the pits after an on-track collision with his teammates in the AF Corse, racing a Ferrari sports car in the LMGTE Am class. The collision happened about two hours before the end of the race.
The Vanwall Racing crew, including Jacques Villeneuve, took 8th in the Hypercar class, but only 30th overall – it was ahead of more than two dozen less powerful cars in the LMP2 and LMGTE Am categories. This happened both due to a suspension defect, which required a long repair, and due to steering errors, by the way, also made by Villeneuve.
It was even worse for the factory Peugeot team, they were plagued with technical problems from the start 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 confidently ran the marathon, leading for almost the entire second half of the race, eventually taking 7th place overall, ahead of the United Autosports crew, who lost relatively few to them. But the third place in this category was taken by the Prema team, and among the crew No. 63 was Daniil Kvyat. He and his teammates drove a good race, made no mistakes and avoided other problems, so we can expect more notable results from them in the next stages of the season.
The second race of the season, the 6 Hours of Portimão, will take place on April 16 at the Portuguese Algarve circuit.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
