Championship points in LMGT3 and a race finish for Valkyrie in Hpyercar after Qatar WEC opener

With all thirty-six crews (spread evenly this time) over the two available Hypercar and LMGT3 classes having been at the circuit for well over a week after last weekend’s official Prologue test, yesterday’s ten hour or 1812km (whichever came the sooner) was the final leg of already what was an endurance event.

With Qualifying and Hyperpole having been completed on Thursday, race day would be another late event with a scheduled finish of midnight local time.

Starting their first ever Hypercar class race, the #007 Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn would have the edge over their sister #009 car of Marco Sorensen, Alex Riberas and Roman De Angelis but a struggling Toyota Hypercar would split the two Aston Martin’s at the rear of the class after the #009 was stripped of all its times for speeding within the pit lane.

Within LMGT3 it was better, with the #27 Vantage of Ian James (with Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi) got themselves into Hyperpole to claim a P7 overall start in class whilst Derek DeBoer started from P12 within his #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Vantage that he shares with Valentin Hasse-Clot and Eduardo Barrichello.

Starting under bright but fresh and windy conditions, the inevitable panel beating between cars fortunately didn’t see any immediate issues on track as everyone settled into what would become a 335-lap race.

We soon got to see the race pace of the new Valkyrie against its more established and (importantly) hybrid driven cars of its competitors against the normally aspirated wail of the V12 Aston Martin engine and that was about 2.5 seconds down against the Ferrari up front of the race.

Other issues beyond its powertrain soon became evident for both Valkyrie’s as the #007 was reporting early understeer on the front as well as issues with the rear of the car whilst the #009 lost a door after one pitstop that consigned them to the garage for repairs the remainder of those on track under caution whilst the door was removed from the track. There was however, one small victory for the #009 as Sorensen achieved two purple sectors on lap during his double stint showing as least, there was performance within the beast under him!!

In LMGT3, James would run his customary 2.5 times stint length as a one to complete his two hours fifty-five-minute drive time – allowing him to take over his managerial duties within the team’s Hypercar programme alongside. Within the #10 car, both DeBoer and Barrichello would complete their own WEC debut with the American and Brazilian splitting stints to achieve the same drive time as James.

Both AMR Vantage LMGT3 crews would run for much of the time within the top ten in class before strategy was forced to change throughout the race resulting periods of caution – those fortunately being only Virtual Safety Car or Full Course yellow but still, over an hour of the race was lost to these.

Later in the race, the #007 Hypercar was started struggling with further technical issues that required it to visit its box on several occasions. With certainly no race winning aspirations in their opening race, their race was to get both cars to at least finish as that technical data was worth their effort but just before the 75% race distance stage, the Heart of Racing team were forced to concede defeat with the #007 and retire the car with apparent transmission issues.

Going into the final hours, the battle was certainly on for both Vantage LMGT3 cars that were still circulating within the top ten overall and top three for the #27 with Drudi again behind the wheel. Their Achillies heal however, become pit lane discipline as valuable time was lost on countless times to speeding within the pitlane, unsafe releases and other pit stop transgressions that ultimately saw both cars drop off the lead lap in class.

With the chequered flag eventually dropping, there was at least Championship points to celebrate within both LMGT3 runners as the #27 crew claimed P6 in class whilst the #10 crew eventually finished P9 in class. With 1.5 times the normal allocation of points on offer for this 10-hour race as opposed to a normal 6-hour affair, they might well become significant as the season progresses to Imola, Italy in mid-April.

The #009 Hypercar meanwhile completed the race (albeit 23 laps down to the leaders) for maximum data collection and driver/team experience as many within that group set move onto Sebring for the next round of the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship for their GTP class debut with the car in that series.

Photo credits – Team / social media / FIA WEC DPPI