Robert Shwartzman, Robert Kubica and Ye Yiefi have won the Lone Star Le Mans, the 6 hour race held at the Circuit of the Americas, part of the World Endurance Championship.
They beat the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, and Nyck de Vries, with Kobayashi putting huge pressure on Shwartzman in the final stint. However, the Ferrari driver withstood it to take a first victory for the private #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P.
The gap at the line was 1.780 seconds, the second-closest WEC finish in history.
In third was the factory #50 Ferrari of Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco, and Nicklas Nielsen.
Kubica took the lead early on when AF Corse, who also runs Ferrari’s factory effort, swapped positions with the Pole’s car and the pole-sitting #51 Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi.
From then on, Ye, Kubica and Shwartzman extended the lead and were looking good for victory. However, in the second half of the race, the #7 Toyota, preferring the cooler track conditions, caught Ye in the car.
Nyck de Vries, in the #7 Toyota at the time, then undercut the Ferrari in order to take the lead, despite having more useable energy.
The strategy was successful, with a quicker pitstop and Kobayashi’s, who had climbed into the car replacing de Vries, outlap contributing to him taking the lead after Ye stopped the next lap, handing over to Shwartzman.
However, it wasn’t over. While Kobayashi extended a lead over Shwartzman, the Japanese driver came unstuck when he didn’t lift for a local yellow flag to recover the stricken #94 Peugeot, which had stopped with hybrid issues on the back straight.
The stewards duly served Kobayashi with a drive through penalty, reversing the order and putting Shwarztman into the lead, with a gap just under 10 seconds.
Kobayashi undoubtedly had the pace to catch the Ferrari, but a short full course yellow, and some small mistakes from Kobayashi, gave Shwartzman the win.
Fuoco crossed the line third in the sole remaining factory Ferrari, as the #51 had retired early on with driveline issues after misjudging an overtake on the #94 Peugeot of Stoffel Vandoorne.
The #50 did not have the pace of its privateer cousin, but still came away with a podium, 26 seconds down.
In fourth was the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber. On the opening lap multiple small incidents meant they dropped some way down the top 10 after starting third, but they climbed back through to take a fine fourth place, their best result of what has been a tricky year for the American squad and lone Cadillac in WEC competition this season.
Another best finish was collected at COTA by the #35 Alpine A424, with Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Paul-Loup Chatin taking fifth. Habsburg made contact with the Cadillac on the first lap and went tumbling down the order, but, much like Lynn and Bamber did, the Alpine trio recovered to take fifth.
The two factory Penske-run Porsches were sixth and seventh, Kevin Estre in the #6 finishing ahead of Michael Christensen in the #5. Neither Porsche had the pace to compete with Toyota and Ferrari today, and were beaten as well by Cadillac and Alpine. But they maximised what they could to collect valuable championship points.
Eighth went to the #15 BMW WRT M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor, with ninth going to the sister #36 Alpine, Mick Schumacher crossing the line. Rounding out the top 10 was the #38 JOTA Porsche 963 of Jenson Button.
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