Just the small issue tomorrow of an 8 hour race to conclude the WEC GTE Am Championships

The scene has now been set ahead of tomorrow’s final, Championship deciding round of the World Endurance Championship from the Bahrain International Circuit.

After the final three Free Practice sessions of the season and then the final Qualifying session, we at least now know of the order that the thirteen GTE Am cars will be starting tomorrow’s race, but it will take the whole eight hours of the final race to be able to crown the GTE Am Drivers and Team Champions.

The battle royale in class of course stands between the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera and the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Racing Vantage GTE of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga who enter this race 21.5 points behind the Ferrari crew after the #33 car claimed their class win last weekend in the six-hour race.

We understand that the #83 crew need to finish P4 or higher to take the crown regardless of where the #33 car finishes to claim their prize but as we have seen many times before, those coming from behind have nothing to lose as the race pressures will be faced more by the championship leading Ferrari crew.

On the flip side of that, all the Ferrari 488 GTE cars in GTE Am have received an increase in fuel capacity at the start of this final round as well as a small increase in turbo boost across its declared rev range and whilst the Qualifying lap times for the three Aston’s have remained similar to what they achieved in last week’s race, the laps times of the Ferrari crews have improved – not just over a one lap Qualifying position but also through longer runs in Free Practice too.

At the conclusion of Qualifying earlier today, the #33 car of Keating finished fifth quickest in class, the #98 Northwest car of Paul Dalla Lana in sixth with the #777 D’Station Racing car of Satoshi Hoshino in eleventh after both he and Dalla Lana had a lap deleted for infringing track limits.

The trouble is that the #83 claimed a P2 starting position so it will be a long race to the end for the guys in the blue TF Sport supported Aston Martin.

Fingers crossed!

Photo credits – Adrenal Media (WEC) / TF Sport