Ferrari AF Corse secured a comprehensive win at the season-opening Qatar 1812km, finishing first and third. Second was another Ferrari: the #83 Ferrari 499P of privateer team AF Corse.
The #50 car of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Niklas Nielsen emerged from the final round of pit stops in second position behind the #83 Ferrari of Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye, driven at the Pole Kubica. With fresher tyres on the car, Fuoco was able to easily catch and pass the #83 in the final hour.
Unlike the previous year, the season-opening Qatar 1812km was a stop-start affair punctuated by multiple safety car and full course yellow periods. The interruptions periodically brought the pack back together and made for some exciting racing, particularly in the midfield.
Cadillac hopes dashed after inter-team collision
The safety car also led to one of the most controversial incidents in the race. The closest challengers to Ferrari on pace, Cadillac Hertz Team Jota, led the field after 74 laps of the race and looked in excellent shape to challenge the trio of red cars. However, just as the race was about to get back underway, Alex Lynn in the #12 car crashed into the back of Jenson Button in the #38 as the latter was controlling the pace of the field.
The resulting damage meant that both cars had to pit immediately to repair the damage. The #12 V-Series.R managed to recover somewhat to finish 8th, while the #38 car finished 11 laps down in 16th.
Toyota and BMW strong, Porsche disappoint
With Cadillac out of the way, Ferrari spent the remainder of the race largely unchallenged. Both Toyota and BMW showed good race pace at times, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the leading trio. Thanks to a great strategy call at the final set of stops, the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 was able to leapfrog the pair of Toyotas to finish in a well-earned fourth position.
Reigning champions Porsche had a weekend to forget. The German marque never looked like challenging for the win in Qatar, and had to settle for P10 and P11 and just handful of championship points.
LMGT3 goes down to the wire
The battle in LMGT3 went all the way down to the final stages of the race, with the #33 TF Sport Corvette ultimately prevailing ahead of the #59 McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo. Despite being put under severe pressure from the hard-charging Grégoire Saucy in the McLaren, Spaniard Dani Juncadella kept his cool and defended expertly to secure Corvette’s first LMGT3 victory.
Third was the #31 The Bend Team WRT BMW featuring former Porsche driver Yasser Shahin in his new guise alongside Timur Boguslavskiy and Augusto Farfus. After a disappointing first season, Akkodis ASP Team displayed race-leading pace for the first time with their Lexus RC F LMGT3 and ultimately came home in fourth, their best ever FIA WEC finish.
The full list of results from Qatar can be found here. The next round of the FIA World Endurance Championship is in Imola on Easter Sunday, 20th April.
Bilder © Endurance-Archive (Walter Schruff)