AF Corse – Syndication Server

Restarts and luck key to Porsche, AF Corse wins at Watkins Glen

As the clock started on the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, the sixth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, polesitter Louis Deletraz quickly found his No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 GTP car swamped by competitors and as he slid backwards in the field. Five-and-three-quarter hours later, as he led the field to the green on the final restart, it happened again as Felipe Nasr pushed his No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 past in Turn 1.

Nasr then held off Renger van der Zande and the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R to take the second win of the season for he and Dane Cameron after the Rolex 24 at Daytona, and the third win of the season for Porsche Penske Motorsport. Nasr and Cameron became the first repeat GTP winners in 2024 and padded their championship lead.

“I knew I was going to have one chance, and that one chance came right at the restart,” explained Nasr. “All I did was work my tires and brakes as hard as I could just to get temperature in everything and as soon as we got the get-go in the last corner I could see the car ahead of me struggle and I said, ‘Man, I’m going for it,’ and made the move stick. Then it was all about managing the traffic ahead.”

We’re back to GREEN FLAG racing!
Only 15 Minutes to go.#IMSA | @WGI pic.twitter.com/C4JHK9F8NM

— IMSA (@IMSA) June 23, 2024

In between that first start and the final restart were four hours of survival and a red flag for a track with an inch of water on it. The race had an almost full reset with 16 minutes of all-out sprint racing to end it.

Weather was expected to play a part, and it did, often throwing a wrench into strategy and reversing the course of several team’s fortunes. The first shower came at almost exactly halfway. At that point, Nick Tandy was demonstrating the speed of the PPM 963s by pushing the No. 6 to a 15s lead.

The No. 7 was slightly off sequence and stayed out while the rest of the field pitted during a full-course caution that came out with 3h51m remaining. When the rain started, most cars pitted for rain tires, but Cameron hadn’t brought the No. 7 in when a full-course caution came out for a crash that ended up blocking pit-in. Running low on energy, it looked like Cameron was out of luck, but as the field circulated under yellow, the rain stopped and the track began to dry. When Cameron was finally able to pit the No. 7 for fuel, the team kept the slicks on the car.

“In the moment, honestly, it felt like we were a bit unlucky and we thought we had kind of got it wrong,” said Cameron. “It seemed okay — little bits of rain — and then suddenly a big downpour came on the front. I thought we were a bit in the s***, and I thought we missed it. Then it went yellow and suddenly it’s like, ‘Well, it’s going to be dry. We’re going to be fine here.’”

At the restart, Cameron had the car in the lead after a lap, and then all the others pitted for slicks as well. The PPM Porsche luck seemed to run out later when the second rainstorm began with 1h46m left. All the GTP leaders came in for wets. Both Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s got trapped in their pit boxes in the crowded pit lane, and while the No. 6 and No. 7 had been first and third, respectively, they ended up fifth and sixth while the two Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06s led the field, the No. 40 leading the No. 10.

The downpour sent several cars sliding off track, which triggered a full-course caution. That became a red flag as water overwhelmed the track and cars could barely stay on the pavement even behind the safety car. By the time the race went green with 16 minutes left, it had undergone a complete reset.

When the red changed back to a full-course caution and the field was back under the safety car, all the cars that had pitted for wets came back in for slicks, as the track was nearly dry again. Deletraz led in the No. 40 Acura, but Nasr had come out of the stop in second, followed by van der Zande in the No. 01 Cadillac, Mathieu Jaminet in the No. 6 PPM 963 and Connor De Phillippi in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8.

The restart was delayed by the No. 10 Acura losing a wheel, leaving only 16 minutes of intense racing to go. When it came, it was almost a replay of the start 5h45m hours prior, when Deletraz was swamped by the cars behind as he struggled to get temperature in the tires. Nasr and van der Zande were by quickly, Nasr making his move in Turn 1 at the green. Jaminet followed a short time later, pushing Deletraz back to fourth.

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With the No. 01 Cadillac now on the tail of the No. 7 Porsche, van der Zande started pressuring Nasr, but Nasr’s decisive moves in traffic kept van der Zande at bay. Nasr crossed the finish 0.749s ahead of the Cadillac.

“It’s that [intense] feeling of no time to waste and that’s how we went into that final with the traffic,” said van der Zande of the chase. “[The GT cars] are also obviously also fighting for their position, so at one point going into the chicane with a Corvette and I think an Aston Martin, they were fighting each other and then I come around as well. It’s quite tricky, and it’s really a dance between those cars and us to not touch each other, but we made it happen. This championship is the only championship in the world [that] has that kind of racing, which is very particular and very cool.”

The No. 6 PPM 963 of Jaminet and Nick Tandy was third, and Deletraz and Jordan Taylor fourth as the top four finished in championship order.

The No. 25 BMW of De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly was an improbable fifth. De Phillippi had crashed the car in the closing minutes of the second practice session on Saturday morning, damaging the monocoque. The test car had to be shipped in from Indianapolis, and BMW M Team RLL crew had to get to work in the early hours of the morning to move most of the back half of the crashed car onto the substitute chassis.

The crew got it done in time for the race, but missed the installation lap. That meant the car had to start from pit lane and serve a subsequent drive-through penalty.

The No. 25 crew was aided by problems for the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, which needed a new nose after Pipo Derani had contact with traffic, and the No. 85 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 serving a long penalty for contact with the Michelin RFID readers at pit exit.

Cameron and Nasr now lead the GTP points by 93, with 2044 to van der Zande and Bourdais with 1951. Jaminet and Tandy are third with 1912, followed by Jordan Taylor and Deletraz with 1845.

With newly minted 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Nicklas Nielsen in the No. 88 ORECA for its final stint, AF Corse took the LMP2 victory, with Nielsen, Luis Perez Companc and Lilou Wadoux Ducellier.

“It’s been a good couple of weeks I would say,” Nielsen said. “I’m happy to take my maiden win in IMSA as well — super competitive championship. I think we’ve been fast and competitive the whole IMSA season, but we’ve just been a bit unlucky. Obviously with the contact and then the fire in Sebring, that didn’t really help us, but I’m very happy to bounce back here.”

The No. 88 was nearly taken out a couple of times, once on the first lap as Dwight Merriman poked the nose of the No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA inside and spun Companc, and at the end of the race when Felipe Fraga tried a similar move, but only spun his own No. 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA. It was one of several moments of luck that led to victory.

“We were actually a bit lucky with the first big shower we had when we had the safety car then replaced by the red flag, because we actually started the refueling and then it started to rain heavily in the pit lane and then we decided to go on the wets. Once the restart happened it was more or less already dry again, so I would say we were lucky and then we were a bit unlucky again. More or less everyone had to box for either tires a fuel,” explained Nielsen.

“In the end there was just a hard fight with Colin Braun and Felipe [Fraga]. Racing here is always tough.”

Fraga recovered to finish third on the track, but the second-place No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR team of Colin Braun, George Kurtz and Toby Sowery fell afoul of drive time rules, so Fraga, Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon claimed second. The No. 52 Inter Europol by PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA of Jakub Smiechowski, Tom Dillman and Nick Boulle finished third.

Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch maintain their LMP2 points lead, but they’re now only four points better than the Riley Motorsports squad, 942 to 938.

RESULTS

LM24 Hour 9: Green, plus Ferrari penalty and more BMW woes

With the race returning to green in the ninth hour, the 92nd edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours has come alive, with the cars on the lead lap in each class bunched up and another bout of rain throwing a wrench in the works. The No. 83 Ferrari led at …

The No. 83 Ferrari led at the restart, but Robert Kubica and every car bar the No. 5 Porsche and No. 311 Whelen Cadillac dived straight in for wets.

Staying out on slicks proved to be a mistake. The No. 5 Porsche, after inheriting the lead, dropped down to 11th, while the No. 311 ended up falling to 12th and last of the cars on the lead lap with Pipo Derani struggling to keep the pace.

Kubica retook the lead off Fred Makowiecki for the No. 83 crew with ease on wets, but moments later was handed a 30s stop-go penalty for causing the collision that led to the No. 15 WRT BMW crashing out of the race. The infraction dropped the car to sixth.

After all this, the No. 8 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID suddenly leads the race, with Ryo Hirakawa holding station with a 17s gap back to Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 6 Penske Porsche.

The No. 7 Toyota completes the top three, and for this trio, the comeback is complete after they all lost time to tire gambles early in the race.

Cadillac occupies fourth with the No. 2, with the No. 50 Ferrari completing the top five.

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LMP2, meanwhile, saw drama for Duqueine Team’s ORECA punctuate the hour. Jean-Baptiste Simmenauer stopped the car with the rear end smoking, the car’s engine seemingly overheating under the safety car — an on-the-spot retirement.

Out front, the No. 37 COOL Racing ORECA finds itself back in the lead, rapid Dane Malthe Jakobsen installed for what is easily the toughest sequence of the race yet, with the night hours underway and parts of the track drying.

The No. 24 Nielsen Racing example, since the Safety Car, has climbed to second with 2023 class winner Fabio Scherer now lapping the circuit. The No. 183 Pro/Am leading entry with Ben Barnicoat at the wheel is third.

LMGT3 saw one of the key contenders hit potentially terminal trouble.

The No. 46 Team WRT BMW, with Bronze-rated Ahmad Al Harthy at the wheel, ended up sliding off the circuit on the run down the hill after the Dunlop Bridge, hitting the tires nose first. The impact caused a water leak and the car plummeted down the order.

Al Harthy, who seemed a total passenger once the back end stepped out on him, was understandably mortified on the team radio: “It just slipped on me. Not again, oh my God, guys,” he said.

The car was retired just into the tenth hour, ending the charge for Valentino Rossi in his first Le Mans start — a crying shame after he led a portion of the opening hours. It also adds to BMW’s woes. The German marque’s only chance of success rests with the No. 31 M4 LMGT3 in 10th, as both its Hypercars have been knocked out of contention.

This leaves the Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche out front in the lead, with the No. 88 Proton Mustang now back into the fray with Dennis Olsen trying to reel in Klaus Bachler.

Manthey EMA’s Porsche is third.

With conditions treacherous, tire choice is set to be crucial going forward as the field gradually switches back to slicks.

HOUR 9 STANDINGS

Kubica tipped for third WEC Ferrari Hypercar in 2024

The driver lineup for a third, privately-funded Ferrari 499P Hypercar for the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship is set to be announced with the official full series entries on Monday, with a Formula 1 race winner leading the new trio of drivers. …

The third Ferrari, which will race alongside the pair of full works cars from Ferrari AF Corse, will compete under the AF Corse SRL banner and is set to feature former F1 star Robert Kubica (pictured above) — who was announced as an AF Corse driver for 2024 earlier this week and tested a 499P at Imola that same day — and Chinese driver Yifei Ye.

“I’m happy that my path and the path of AF Corse will be the same next season,” said Kubica, who raced with the WRT team in LMP2 in the WEC this year. “AF is one of the most successful teams ever in motorsport: I’m sure we’ll do a great job together. What’s more, I’m back in an Italian team, which is no small matter.”

Initially, it was expected that the third car would feature backing from Richard Mille, the watchmaker and FIA Endurance Commission president, following his GTE Am effort with the Italian brand in 2023. However, the funding package is now believed to be from Asia, bringing Ye into the program.

Ye, who competed with Hertz Team JOTA’s Porsche 963 in the WEC this season, will therefore compete against his former team in the WEC’s Hypercar teams’ championship for privately entered Hypercars next season. His move leaves JOTA — which is set to scale up to a two-car Hypercar effort in 2024 — with another seat to fill for the forthcoming campaign, as Antonio Felix da Costa has also been pried away from the British team due to his Formula E commitments with Porsche.

In the third Ferrari Ye is set to be joined by former Formula 1 star Robert Kubica, who was announced as an AF Corse driver for 2024 earlier this week and tested a 499P at Imola that same day.

The driver trio is expected to be completed by Ferrari F1 reserve driver Robert Shwartzman. The Russo-Israeli driver also has experience behind the wheel of a 499P, having sampled the car at the post-season Bahrain rookie test earlier this month, where he confirmed to RACER his interest in a race seat.

“I am open to everything — I am not just focused on F1,” he said. “I really hope that after this test there will be an opportunity to try and race the Hypercar and get the whole experience in endurance racing.”

The 2024 FIA WEC entry to be released on Monday is expected to include 37 cars overall.

Ferrari wins Le Mans as Hypercars claw through 24 hours of drama

Ferrari AF Corse’s No. 51 499P Hypercar has won the Le Mans 24 Hours – the centenary edition of the event that was first run in 1923. In a race that had everything: incidents, sudden weather changes, surprise class leaders, mechanical dramas and …

Ferrari AF Corse’s No. 51 499P Hypercar has won the Le Mans 24 Hours — the centenary edition of the event that was first run in 1923. In a race that had everything: incidents, sudden weather changes, surprise class leaders, mechanical dramas and countless on-track battles, Antonio Giovanazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi survived one of the most chaotic races at La Sarthe in recent memory to take a famous win in front of an enormous crowd of 325,000 people.

Race winners Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi in their Ferrari AF Corse 499P relishing a win in front of the biggest crowd seen at Le Mans in years. Rainier Ehrhardt/Motorsport Images

It was a race that lived up to wild expectations and saw most of the factory cars in the top class remain in contention for the first half of the race before it came down to a battle between Ferrari and Toyota on Sunday morning.

After a titanic scrap between the No. 51 and No. 8 Hypercars, the Prancing Horse claimed its 10th overall Le Mans win and its first since 1965 — an achievement all the more impressive given the young the age of the 499P program. In the car’s first Le Mans appearance, the No. 51 was fast and near-bulletproof, breaking Toyota’s unbeaten run to start the FIA WEC season by completing 342 laps of the circuit.

Racing went down to the wire, with the top two on the lead lap until the very end, as close as 16 seconds apart in the penultimate hour before a costly error from Ryo Hirakawa in the No. 8 at Arnage effectively ended Toyota’s chances. The pendulum kept swinging, with the Toyota’s chances of victory changing by the hour before Hirakawa was entrusted with chasing down the Ferrari in the final dash to the finish. The pit wall was urging him to catch and pass Giovanazzi, but the pressure got to the Japanese driver, who ended up in the barriers with damage to the front and rear of the car that required an emergency stop for repairs. In doing so, the car almost fell off the lead lap.

The aftermath of Hirakawa’s exuberant driving. Rainier Ehrhardt/Motorsport Images

Giovanazzi was ebullient during the celebration.

“It’s just special. We ran the car less than a year ago for the first time. To be here is fantastic. We didn’t expect to survive for 24 hours, but the whole team did a fantastic job. We are all here… After 50 years, we are back and we need to be really proud,” he said.

The No. 8 GR010 HYBRID would eventually come home second, but the runner-up result will come as a colossal disappointment for Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Hirakawa and the entire team, who headed into the race with the sole aim of scoring Toyota’s sixth consecutive overall win. Instead, they had to settle for a podium finish, crossing the line 1m21s behind the winning Ferrari, itself having a minor drama at its final stop, the car struggling to fire up.

“It was a tough one, just to remain on track,” Buemi said. “We were a bit too slow (and) we had to over-drive to keep up with them (Ferrari). They were faster than us. They had more pace. We did everything we could, but full credit to them, they have been very impressive. We have to come back stronger at Monza.”

Completing the podium was the No. 2 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R which had a metronomic run to the flag — a spin in the wet at Mulsanne Corner was the car’s only notable hiccup. A really promising performance from Richard Westbrook, Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber, scored Cadillac its first podium in WEC competition, the first LMDh car across the line.

“We knew coming in that we had to run our race. We had to run clean because we knew Ferrari and Toyota would be super fast and we had to be the car that doesn’t make a mistake and is always there,” Lynn said. “That is the theme of our season. We always dig in and grind out a result. That’s why I’m so proud of this team and this Cadillac race car. It never misses a beat, and now we can say — on the biggest stage — it didn’t even in the first year of the program. It’s only going to get better.”

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It was by no means a simple race for Cadillac though, as its other two V-Series.Rs hit trouble early and spent much of the race recovering. Action Express had its chance of a strong finish end on the opening lap when Jack Aitken had an off in the wet on the exit of the first Mulsanne Chicane, going nose-first into the guardail, causing damage that would cost the team multiple laps in the garage. The No. 3 Cadillac Racing machine had a better race, finishing fourth, though it, too, lost time when Sebastien Bourdais was rear-ended by the No. 21 AF Corse GTE Ferrari at the Dunlop Bridge on Saturday night and required a trip to the garage for repairs.

The No. 50 AF Corse 499P was delayed by mechanical issues, including a lengthy stint in the garage for a brake leak, and finished fifth.

For Toyota and Ferrari, the second half of the race was extremely tense as both teams were left with a single car apiece in the fight for victory. The No. 7 Toyota had looked to be the faster of the two GR010s but Kamui Kobayashi ended up getting caught in a multi-car pile-up at Tertre Rouge going into a slow zone. Kobayashi was hit from behind by two cars at once — an Alpine ORECA and the JMW Ferrari — which terminally damaged the car.

Ferrari’s No. 50 also looked strong from pole position, but its woes meant Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina were forced to play rear-gunner for the second half of the race and apply pressure to the No. 8 crew when the two cars came together on track.

But what of the other manufacturers? Porsche and Peugeot both spent time in contention for victory, in part because the opening hours of this race were so chaotic. Pre-race rain made for a greasy track at the start. Further heavy rain came in two bouts into the evening, each time shuffling the order and catching out so many key drivers who were left to fend for themselves on slick tires in the driving rain.

After struggling through the opening rounds of the WEC season with its 9X8s, Peugeot’s search for pace and durability led to Gustavo Menezes hauling the No. 94 into the lead. The Californian was mercurial in the tricky wet conditions, putting Peugeot in the shock position to fight for a famous upset.

The most surprising development early on was the rise of Peugeot, the final classification not telling the full story for the French manufacturer. Rainier Ehrhardt/Motorsport Images

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be and the race gradually unraveled for the Peugeot TotalEnergies effort. Menezes, in fact, went from hero to zero overnight, ending up in the barriers at a Mulsanne Chicane, which resulted in the car being repaired in the garage for over 20 minutes. Later in the race the No. 94 hit further trouble with its hydraulic pressure, an issue that impacted both cars.

The No. 93’s eighth-place finish wasn’t the result anyone in the team would have aimed for. Nevertheless, making the end with both cars, and showing some pace on the most important circuit on the calendar, was a mark of real progress, leaving the team wondering whether or not this is the moment the 9X8 program turns the page.

Yifei Ye, another driver who took the lead and then ended up in the barriers, turned the heads of everyone when he steered the Hertz Team JOTA Porsche (which started 60th) to the lead in the fifth hour. Ye then pushed too hard through the Porsche Curves and had an off that severely damaged the car. JOTA would cross the line, but as the last of the classified finishers — 244 laps completed after a lengthy list of woes later in the race. It was a memorable outing for JOTA in only its second race with the 963, but it will leave knowing a better result was on the table.

The same can be said across the board for Porsche. The three factory Penske cars had a torrid time, with mechanical issues impacting each of them. The No. 75 IMSA-crewed car retired out on track with a power loss overnight. The two WEC cars made the finish, 13 and 22 laps down, after a leaking coolant pipe issue overnight and a power loss in the final hour for the No. 5. A puncture, high voltage issue and an off at the Porsche Curves for the No. 6 while pushing to take fourth from the No. 3 Cadillac ended its chances. Unfortunately for the German giant amid its 75th anniversary celebrations, the post-race debrief will not be a positive one.

Of the three non-hybrid entries from Glickenhaus and Vanwall, the American 007s impressed the most, finishing a very respectable sixth and seventh overall.

PROVISIONAL RESULTS BY CLASS

Cadillac, AF Corse Ferrari bounce back from Spa setbacks

After long nights for both sets of mechanics, the two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVOs and the No. 3 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R are back in action at Spa following yesterday’s incidents in Free Practice 2. At AF Corse, getting its pair of 488 GTE EVOs …

At AF Corse, getting its pair of 488 GTE EVOs that came together at Raidillon yesterday ready for track action today has been a colossal task.

The No. 21, which hit the rear of the No. 54 as it was exiting the endurance pits after an error from Diego Alessi, was damaged beyond repair in the incident. Thankfully, Ferrari confirmed to RACER last night that both drivers are OK. Alessi, however, has been handed a 30-second stop-and-go penalty to be served during this week’s race, or the next race he takes part in.

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Alessi was found by the stewards to have caused the FP2-ending collision with the No. 54, which was exiting the pits on cold tires and under the protection of white flags, and on the racing line, as instructed by the race director.

AF Corse has had to source a replacement car for the No. 21. Its No. 54 example, on the other hand, is almost ready to go after an overnight shift by the mechanics to repair the extensive damage to the car’s front and rear.

Meanwhile, at Cadillac Racing, the No. 3 IMSA-crewed V-Series.R is also now fully prepped for today’s track action.

Following the fire out on track, which the team admitted was caused by a “self-induced error,” an engine change was required. The team had to transport a spare engine to the circuit from Germany before fitting it overnight.