Team WRT car number 41 with Robert Kubica in the crew completed the 6 Hours of Portimao in third place in the LMP2 category! For the Pole, this is the second podium finish in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) in his career.
Until now, Robert Kubica’s only podium in the WEC was last year’s great result in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The Pole, together with his then team – Prema – took a high, second place in the prestigious start. He had to wait almost a year for another podium finish in the series.
He managed to change the team at that time, because he reached the podium in Portimao with Team WRT. Car number 41, apart from Kubica, was also driven by the Swiss Louis Deletraz and the Portuguese Rui Andrade. In the LMP2 category, two United Autosports cars ranked ahead of the Pole’s team: the car with number 23 (Oliver Jarvis, Josh Pierson, Giedo van der Garde) won, and the car with number 22 (Philipp Hanson, Frederick Lubin, Ben Hanley) finished second. ).
Kubica’s team had to make up for it and fell to the penultimate position. Then a remarkable promotion
Team WRT’s weekend in Portimao didn’t go well until race day. Crew number 41 in terrible style finished qualifying in only ninth place and had to fight their way through the rest of the field. However, there was no pace and after Rui Andrade’s first substitution, the Belgian team was second to last.
What happened in the next hours, however, was the phenomenal promotion and work of the entire crew. After Andrade, Louis Deletraz got into the car and made up for a large part of the losses: he moved up to fourth position. Robert Kubica’s stint also looked great. The Pole had a chance to lead the WRT even on the podium, but at the end of his shift the pace dropped due to the condition of the tires. Kubica, however, kept the Belgians’ chances of catching up with the top.
Everything changed with the departure of the safety car. The hero of WRT delivered the podium
After four hours of driving, WRT was fifth, with little losses to rivals in the fight for the podium. Everything was turned upside down, however, when the safety car appeared on the track an hour before the end of the race after the Vanwall car driven by Jacques Villeneuve ran off the track and crashed into a tire barrier.
The rate was therefore quite tight to the end and it was possible to quickly reduce losses, as well as look for opportunities to overtake rivals. Thanks to this, Louis Deletraz – the hero of WRT in Sunday’s race, who drove as much as 3.5 hours in it – overtook two cars, thanks to which he was in third position and brought it to the finish line. The leaders from United Autosports WRT lost 5.2 seconds to the winners and 4.5 seconds to second place respectively.
The drama of the Polish team. They could have been fighting for the podium, but they finished far away
Toyota’s #8 hypercar (Brendon Hartley, Sebastian Buemi, Kamui Kobayashi) won the entire race ahead of the “50” Ferrari AF Corse (Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen) and the “six” Porsche Penske (Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor). The #33 Corvette Racing (Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating, Nicolas Varrone) won the LMGTE Am category, followed by Richard Mille AF Corse #83 (Luis Perez Companc, Alessio Rovera, Lilou Wadoux) and “Iron Ladies”, Iron Dames with number 85.
The only Polish team – Inter Europol Competition with a crew of 34 (Jakub Śmiechowski, Fabio Scherer, Albert Costa) – fought for a high position in the LMP2 category and after starting from fourth position was even close to the podium, but in the end, after the exit of the safety car, it lost pace and had to pit for an extra tire change, which pushed him to only 19th position in his class.
The next competition in the WEC series in the 2023 season is scheduled in two weeks. On April 29, drivers will compete in a six-hour race at Spa-Franchorchamps in Belgium. This is the last test before this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, which will take place on June 10-11.
