A lesson from Toyota for all newcomers: The Japanese manufacturer, based in Cologne, put its foot down at the start of the 2023 World Endurance Championship (WEC) and made it clear to the competition how far the road still is.
The two Toyota GR010 Hybrids ran smoothly and twice overtook the assembled competition in the race, in which 239 of the planned 263 laps were completed. The only question was which of the two Toyotas would win the race. The lead changed several times – as usual at Toyota, by arrangement.
In the penultimate hour, Kamui Kobayashi managed to open up a lead of more than ten seconds. That was the decision. Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa had to settle for second place.
Toyota Gazoo Racing was not only ahead in terms of speed. The advantage in experience was also noticeable in the operational processes. This is shown by the fact that Toyota was the only major manufacturer to go unpunished in this race. The numerous newcomers to the hypercar class were relentlessly shown just how far ahead Toyota is.
Ferrari: At least the speed is right
Of the opponents, only Ferrari could keep up on the track. But AF Corse tripped more than just one leg. After just ten minutes, an SC phase was declared after a violent departure by Luis Perez Companc in the AF Corse Ferrari #83 (Perez Companc/Wadoux/Rovera).
Both Ferraris, who were starting from positions one and four at the time, headed for the pit lane after 23 minutes when it was cleared. It will probably never be known whether the strategy that no other hypercar team chose would have worked, but it can be doubted.
At the subsequent restart, Fuoco was too impetuous and overtook an Aston Martin ten meters from the finish line. There was a drive-through penalty for that. The #51 sister car (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi) had a refueling problem at the second stop, which also threw back the second Ferrari 499P.
AF Corse could not recover from these setbacks, especially since there were no more SC phases, only FCY. Objectively speaking, Ferrari was the second force, Toyota was also ahead in terms of speed over the distance. While the #50 was still moving up to third place, the #51 was involved in an accident six hours later.
Alessandro Pier Guidi got stuck while lapping the AF Corse Ferrari #54 driven by Francesco Castellacci (Flohr/Castellacci/Rigon), was forced to spin and took the Project 1 Porsche #56 (Hyett/Jeanette/Cairoli) with him and had to complete a complete lap with a puncture. The repair took ten laps and dropped the #51 to P7 in class and behind the LMP2.
Cadillac almost profited from Ferrari’s mishap. The #2 Cadillac (Bamber/Lynn/Westbrook) would have easily taken third place had the Ganassi team not picked up a drive-through penalty for an offense under FCY.
The Cadillac V-Series.R fought a battle worth seeing with the #50 Ferrari and particularly impressed with the low tire wear. Ten seconds were missing at the finish.
Four manufacturers with a large backlog
Porsche and Peugeot had no chance in this race. The Porsche 963 were able to limit the damage with fifth and sixth place in a trouble-free race. Nevertheless, Penske’s WEC arm will leave Sebring anything but satisfied, because there was clearly a lack of speed – around two seconds behind Toyota.
But those problems were nothing compared to Peugeot. The French experienced a debacle of the worst kind. In the first hour, both Peugeot 9X8s got stuck in one gear. The Peugeot #93 (di Resta/Jensen/Vergne) lost 23 laps due to the repairs, but still scored championship points for ninth place.
The #94 (Duval/Menezes/Müller) had to undergo hours of testing and finished the race in testing. After the Peugeot 9X8 had not exactly excelled in terms of reliability in the 2022 season, this race was the absolute low point for the project. The only hope now is that the less harsh European tracks put less strain on the car. In addition, Peugeot was even slower than Porsche.
The two non-hybrid hypercars of Vanwall and Glickenhaus were even further behind. The #4 Vanwall (Dillmann/Guerrieri/Villeneuve) held up well and even survived a collision when a Peugeot crashed at the start of an FCY.
In the seventh hour, the Kolles team suffered a setback when the suspension broke. The repairs took 20 laps, but Vanwall still took the championship points for eighth place in the hypercars.
Glickenhaus experienced a pitch-black day. Already at the restart after the first SC phase, the Glickenhaus #708 (Dumas/Briscoe/Pla) had problems and stopped for the first time. In the third hour, the 007 stopped again, this time for good. He just went out.
Beckmann takes LMP2 win on debut
The United Autosports Oreca #23 (Pierson/Blomqvist/Jarvis) delivered a dominant performance at the beginning. The blue car seemed untouchable and was already half a minute ahead of the competition when Josh Pierson simply rolled out.
According to the team, an electronic defect was to blame – a problem that repeatedly afflicts the Oreca 07. This time the defect is said to have been caused by an onboard camera. In any case, the race for the superior #23 was over after a little more than three hours.
This paved the way for the Jota-Oreca #48 of David Beckmann, Yifei Ye and Will Stevens. The team bridged the time until their Porsche 963 arrived in the LMP2 class and immediately clinched victory. A strong visiting card, especially for David Beckmann on his WEC debut. When the hypercar is deployed, it makes room for regular third driver Antonio Felix da Costa.
Of the regular LMP2 teams, the United Autosports Oreca #22 (Lubin/Hanson/Albuquerque; 3rd) did best, followed by the Prema-Oreca #63 (Pin/Bortolotti/Kwjat; 2nd), who beat a Splash & Dash fell behind United shortly before the end. The Alpine team experienced a disappointing weekend, finishing ninth and dropping out at the start of their LMP2 transitional season.
Heavy accident and bitter driving error
The favorites prevailed in the GTE Am. Ben Keating, Nick Catsburg and Nicolas Varonne gave the Corvette C8.R its first WEC victory in the LMGTE Am by more than a lap.
The only notable opponent for Corvette Racing was the Iron Lynx Porsche #85 (Bovy/Gatting/Frey; 8th). In the early stages, Ben Keating, who again played the marathon man and drove 2:40 hours at a time, and Sarah Bovy fought a thrilling duel.
The “Iron Dames” said goodbye to the battle for class victory after almost three hours due to Rahel Frey’s driving error. The former DTM driver went off the track at the end of the first corner. The Porsche 911 RSR-19 crashed heavily in the run-off zone and lost the entire rear end including the diffuser, which resulted in a repair stop.
Second place went to the Proton-Porsche #77 (Ried/Pedersen/Andlauer), which overtook the Kessel-Ferrari #57 (Kimura/Huffaker/Serra) shortly before the end because the yellow Ferrari still had to do a Splash & Dash.
Luis Perez Companc caused the greatest moment of shock of the race after just ten minutes with a violent accident. He was behind said duel between Keating and Bovy in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari (Perez Companc/Wadoux/Rovera) when he lost control at Turn 1 and crashed his tail on the roof. Ezequiel Perez Companc’s uncle was unharmed.
The WEC continues on April 15 with the 6 Hours of Portimao.