The AF Corse #83 crew of Robert Kubica, Yifey Ye and Robert Shwartzman won the 6-hour competition on the COTA track. This is the first victory for a Polish driver in the main class of the Endurance World Championship. In LMGT3, the Heart of Racing team triumphed from pole position.
The yellow Ferrari showed top pace in almost all conditions all weekend and was among the favourites along with the factory teams. It was a different story in LMGT3, where the field seemed really tight and the first stint with the “bronzes” behind the wheel was very important.
Robert Kubica maintained second place at the start and for the next dozen or so laps he stayed behind the leader Antonio Giovinazzi. It is worth mentioning that Edoardo Mortara gained as many as 8 positions on the first lap, entering the top ten with a Lamborghini.
Half an hour later, problems arose in the #83 car due to too low pressures. Shortly afterwards, AF Corse decided to change the order of both Ferraris and Robert could push for the lead, pulling away from the Italian. The stewards issued a standard reprimand for the aforementioned offense and ordered him to change all tires. Hence, the Pole’s pit stop lasted a bit longer, but he still managed to maintain first place and show even better pace after leaving the lane.
In such a situation, Toyota #7 joined the fight, chasing Yifey Ye in the following hour. The Chinese driver doubled the stint on hard tires, hence his pace was worse than Nyck de Vries. Soon, the Japanese Hypercar took the lead during the pit stops and with a safe advantage, Kobayashi was driving ahead of Shwartzman. Everything changed when, under yellow flags, Toyota did not slow down because of the Peugeot being stationary. The Samurai were given a drive-through penalty and suddenly AF Corse #83 was driving for the win again.
In the meantime, the second Toyota was in last place, as Sebastien Buemi pushed Laurens Vanthoor off the track at 200 km/h. As a result, the Swiss driver had to pit for 30 seconds and say goodbye to any dreams of a good result.
The fight for victory continued until the very end as the relentless pressure of Kobayashi reduced the deficit to two seconds with five minutes to go. However, Shwartzman held on to the pressure and finished flawlessly, giving AF Corse #83 its first World Endurance Championship victory.
Here’s how Robert Kubica commented on the triumph: – In motorsport everything is possible and today’s victory confirms that. The car was very fast from the start and when you have a good feeling everything else becomes easier. To win an endurance race, many things have to go right. This year we showed that we have a lot of potential, but for some reason we haven’t managed to use it yet. Today we finally did it and we could take great satisfaction from it.
In LMGT3, Heart of Racing dominated the competition with Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas. The Aston Martin crew was initially attacked by the Iron Dames, but the American team was too strong for them. The pink girls later got into trouble of their own when Rahel Frey caused an incident with TF Sport and damaged her Lamborghini.
As always, both Porsche Mantheys were on good pace, benefiting from a 100-second stop&go penalty for the Vista AF Corse #55. The silver Ferrari used too much power and the stewards slammed it. Like a Hypercar, the BMW #46 was on solid pace, but they also had their problems. During the final stint, they had to retire after a power steering failure, which also affected the Iron Dames.
You can check the full results HERE.
