Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer have won the Qatar 1812km for Porsche, ahead of the JOTA Porsche customer car of Will Stevens, Norman Nato and Callum Ilott, and the sister factory car of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Fred Makowiecki, making it an all-Porsche podium.
The #93 Peugeot 9X8 of Jean-Eric Vergne, Mikkel Jensen and Nico Muller ran in second for the majority of the race, but with just a lap to go, Vergne lost power, conceding second and third to the two Porsches. Peugeot would eventually finish a bitter seventh.
The #6 Porsche 963 led for much of the race, with the main challenge coming from the Peugeot and other Porsches, both the sister factory car and the customer JOTA squad and its #12 car, driven by
The #5 Porsche, qualified on pole by Matt Campbell, was started by Michael Christensen but lost the lead almost immediately, as Miguel Molina, in the #50 Ferrari 499P, took the lead ahead of Christensen and Muller in the #93 Peugeot 9X8.
Muller wasn’t content with moving from sixth to third, though, and soon overtook the Danish Porsche driver to take second. He then began to hunt down Molina in the lead.
With not much race time elapsed — half an hour or so — there wasn’t a big gap to close, and the Swiss driver soon caught the Spaniard. It didn’t take long for the Peugeot to move past the Ferrari.
Meanwhile, Vanthoor, in the #6 Porsche, was chasing Christensen, who had dropped to fourth after Stevens, in the #12 JOTA Porsche, executed a textbook divebomb to take third.
As the pitstop cycle completed, Molina, from second, slipped back to sixth, and then slipped further back as the car received a drive through penalty for crossing the white line at pit entry.
As a result of Porsche’s quick work in the pits, Vanthoor was able to move up to second, and set about hunting down Muller in the lead.
As the leaders moved through LMGT3 traffic, Muller went wide at turn 1. Vanthoor needed no invitation and promptly took the lead — one he, or his teammates, never really relinquished for the rest of the race, extending it out at some points to almost a lap over the Peugeot.
The #6 Porsche didn’t have it all their own way, however. There were a few nailbiting moments for Porsche, including late in the race when Kevin Estre passed the #87 ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Takeshi Kimura by up the inside as the Japanese driver turned in to the apex of a corner. The Porsche and the Lexus subsequently made contact, sending Kimura off into the gravel.
While it was thought Estre might receive a penalty for the incident — as it is the faster car’s responsibility to safely pass a slower-class car — but the stewards decided that Kimura was at fault, giving the Lexus team a 10-second penalty to be taken at the car’s next pit stop.
This wasn’t the end of the drama for Porsche, though. As a result of this clash, the #6 Porsche had lost its number panel and leader lights. However, as the race hadn’t been designated a night race, as it was being run under Losail International Circuit’s floodlights, Porsche did not need to repair this.
However, in order to avoid a post-race penalty out of an abundance of caution, Porsche did pit the leading car and slapped a new adhesive number panel onto the side flank of the car.
In the last few laps, Campbell, in what was then fourth began to catch Ilott, in third. Ilott was also catching Vergne in the Peugeot, with the three separated by just a few seconds with three laps remaining.
Campbell at one point caught the British driver in the JOTA, running almost nose-to-tail, but the Aussie, in his enthusiasm to take second and a potential 1-2 for the Penske-run Porsche factory team, got on the marbles and briefly went off track, losing a second to Ilott and ending his challenge.
However, the Peugeot then briefly lost power, with Ilott and Campbell passing to take second and third. Ilott ended 33.297 off Estre in the end.
Ilott fended off Campbell to take third, with Porsche Penske having to settle for a 1-3, Campbell a further second back off Ilott.
In fourth was the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Sebastien Bourdais, a lap down to Estre and the #6 Porsche. The American team moved up through the field after Lynn, who started the car, hit the #94 Peugeot 9X8 of Paul di Resta at turn 1 on the opening lap, damaging the Cadillac and sending the Peugeot into a spin.
This sent the Cadillac and Lynn, who started seventh, out of the top 10, as the Briton struggled with a lack of front end downforce as a result of the contact.
They steadily moved their way back up the field, though, sitting eighth at the halfway mark and crossing the line to finish fourth.
The #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica ans Robert Shwartzman finished fifth, the highest-classified Ferrari further 15 seconds off Bourdais.
Nyck de Vries brought the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid home sixth. De Vries and his teammates, Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway, as well as the teamcar, #8 Toyota, struggled for pace all day, finishing a lap down in the end — the first time Toyota have not led a WEC race at some point in some time.
The #93 Peugeot 9X8, of Muller, Vergne and Jensen, finished seventh after the late race power failure. The car ran second for much of the day, and was looking good for a podium — but it wasn’t to be for Peugeot, in the 9X8’s last race in its wing-less form.
The #50 Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen, Miguel Molina, and Antonio Fuoco finished eighth, two laps down, while the #35 Alpine A424 of Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Paul Loup Chatin was ninth, the only new car to score points in its debut WEC race this year.
The #8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa rounded out the top 10, again struggling for pace in Qatar.
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