The No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Ye Yifei and Robert Shwartzman became the sixth car in six FIA WEC races in 2024 to claim an overall victory Saturday evening at Circuit of The Americas in Texas.
AF Corse’s privately-entered car took the Lone Star Le Mans win in dramatic circumstances after a drive-through penalty in the final hour cost the No. 7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID the lead.
Toyota’s drive-through, handed to the No. 7 crew when Kamui Kobayashi was found to have not respected yellow flags while marshals recovered a stranded Peugeot, ultimately cost the Japanese manufacturer its third win of the season.
Kobayashi and his teammates Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway were forced to settle for second, as the Japanese ace was unable to reel in Shwartzman in the final 40m. He pushed his GR010 to its limits and managed to reduce the deficit from 9.5s to 1.7s by the end — making it the second-closest green flag finish in championship history — but couldn’t quite get close enough to make a move.
The race was highly entertaining in the closing stages and made for a truly momentous occasion for the both No. 83 crew and Ferrari. It was the first WEC overall victory for all three drivers and the first win for the 499P in a WEC race outside of the Le Mans 24 Hours. The race also added to a special weekend for the Prancing Horse, which won the Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix at Monza earlier in the day.
It was a strategic war that went through multiple stages. In the first half, the Ferraris looked dominant, sitting 1-2-3 after a fast start, before BMW and Cadillac climbed into contention 2h in. It then turned into a strategic battle, as both the medium and hard Michelin compounds were utilized in the race. The teams at the front were split, some chose to experiment with different combinations, and others stuck to the mediums as the trackside temperature fluctuated.
The winning Ferrari switched between running three mediums and a single right-rear hard, and hards on all four corners in the race while the best Toyota and Porsche stuck to mediums the whole way through. This tactic would be key to the final result, as it kept Kubica at the start, Ye in the middle and Shwartzman at the end of the race permanently in the top three.
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“We can be happy. It’s been a tough race and we knew it would be critical with tires and traffic management, but the car worked super well. It started well, it finished even better. We couldn’t hope for a better Sunday,” Kubica said.
“There was a lot of pressure in the final laps because my tires were going away. I was sliding all over the place, and any mistake could have cost us the victory,” added Shwartzman.
Behind the No. 7 Toyota, the podium was completed by the Le Mans-winning No. 50 Ferrari which started fourth and ran a consistent, clean race en route to making it a double podium for AF Corse.
Cadillac earned its best result of the season in fourth but will leave slightly frustrated on a day in which it had the pace to claim a podium finish with a clean race.
Alpine, too, enjoyed a standout performance, the No. 35 A424 completing the top five with a performance that suggests the French marque has taken a significant step forward.
“It wasn’t a perfect weekend, but we improved. We got into Hyperpole and finished P5. It was not the result we expected after a tough start to the race and a drive-through, but we recovered and in the end, we can be proud and build on this,” No. 35 driver Charles Milesi told RACER.
BMW, on the other hand, wasted a chance to come away with its first podium in the class. The M Hybrid V8s looked transformed early, with pace that matched the Ferraris. As the race wore on both cars faded through a combination of penalties and errors. The No. 15, which suffered a spin that cost a chunk of time early on, was the better placed of the two at the end, off the lead lap and eighth.
The final result of Lone Star Le Mans was both historic and critical for the championship battle. The No. 7 Toyota and No. 50 Ferrari made gains Saturday, finishing ahead of the championship-leading No. 6 Penske Porsche, which struggled for outright pace, survived a heated clash with the No. 8 Toyota and fell from fifth to sixth after a late drive-through.
By salvaging a points finish, Porsche’s Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor still hold the lead going into the race at Fuji, but its margin has been reduced to 12 points over the two chasing crews who now sit on equal points in second.
“It’s not ideal,” Lotterer said. “I think we could have finished fifth, we finished sixth, we didn’t use our maximum potential. We were able to move forward though from 14th on the grid which was important.”
Further down the order, it was a tough race for the Lamborghini which lacked ultimate pace and finished 14th. The No. 8 Toyota also failed to fight at the sharp end like the sister car and eventually dropped down the order when it was dealt two costly penalties, the first for the aforementioned contact with the No. 6 Porsche, the second for not respecting yellow flags like the No. 7 and No. 6. It came home 15th.
The No. 50 would be the only factory Ferrari 499P to make it to the finish, as the No. 51 retired in the second hour while sitting second. The car retired as contact with the No. 78 AKKODIS Lexus damaged a wheel rim and led to a terminal drivetrain issue.
Giovinazzi was unable to get the car fired and up to full speed, returning to the pits under electrical power only before stopping on the pit apron. The car was then pushed into the garage and withdrawn from the race, the specific reason not yet disclosed.
It wasn’t the only car to hit mechanical trouble, as the No. 12 JOTA Porsche spent most of the race in and out of the garage with niggling issues. The No. 94 Peugeot also failed to make the finish, the car pulled off to the side of the circuit down the back straight 4h into the race, after a tough race that began with a puncture on the opening lap caused by contact with the No. 12.
Meanwhile, LMGT3 was utterly dominated by Heart of Racing, which claimed a lights-to-flag win from pole with its Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 EVO driven by Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas.
The trio were absolutely faultless in the punishing heat and completed the race almost entirely unchallenged, finishing with a winning margin of 20s. It was a maiden WEC LMGT3 victory for the team, all three drivers and the 2024-spec Vantage GT3, and came on home turf for Heart of Racing. It is also a 10th WEC class win at COTA for Aston Martin.
“Everyone worked in unison. I couldn’t be happier to do this in America,” James said.
“We won at home and for us, an American team, it’s great,” Mancinelli added.
Behind, the championship-leading No. 92 Pure Rxcing Porsche extended its points lead to 28 points with yet another strong finish, the car growing stronger as the race wore on.
Joel Sturm, Klaus Bachler and Alex Malykhin — on the weekend which Malykhin described as the toughest of the season due to the weather, lack of circuit knowledge and success ballast applied to the car — dug deep and again came away with another massive result. They not only finished second, but crossed the line ahead of their title rivals too.
“Our team is just so good and we make such good strategic decisions that we end up in good positions. I’m really happy with second. It’s not a win but it’s not mega bad!” Sturm reacted. “Pace wasn’t the key today. We just stayed out of trouble and didn’t make mistakes.”
By pulling away even further in the points battle, the Lithuanian-flagged team has edged ever closer to claiming the LMGT3 drivers’ and teams’ championship.
“We didn’t have the pace for P1,” Sturm said. “It’s been tough, but we are picking up the points and that’s important.”
Completing the podium and securing a double podium for Porsche was the Manthey EMA 911. Yasser Shahin, Richard Lietz and Morris Schuring, like their Manthey teammates in the No. 92, fought through the field and were rewarded handsomely for staying out of trouble. In championship terms, it was damage limitation, finishing just behind Pure Rxcing keeps them in the fight.
It was a worse situation for WRT’s No. 31 crew of Augusto Farfus, Darren Leung and Sean Gelael, who finished fifth behind the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren and now head to Fuji 34 points adrift.