2024 WEC Texas | 6 talking points

Calm Kubica, stellar Schwartzman, unyielding Ye

What a weekend for the privately-entered Ferrari 499P from AF Corse. The team of Roberts Kubica and Schwartzman and Ye Yifei have been contenders almost constantly this year, but found obstacles in their way. At times that has been self-inflicted (Kubica’s egregious actions against Dries Vanthoor at Le Mans) and at others they have been unfortunate (rain in Imola destroyed the races of every 499P).

At COTA the #83 and Kubica were the clear best car of the field for the first half of the race, but the car came under proper pressure from Toyota’s #7 GR010, eventually relinquishing the lead after Ye put up a valiant effort on old tyres after being left out for an extra stint. After Toyota’s late penalty Schwartzman held on from a charging - probably angry - Kamui Kobayashi to take a brilliant victory for the vivid yellow Ferrari a few hours after the F1 team’s victory on home soil. With two races left it’s also a vital one for their battle for the independent championship, sitting 30 points off Jota with two races to run.

Penalties cost Toyota

It should probably have been a clear victory for the #7 Toyota GR010 of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck De Vries. The GR010 is now one of the best packages on the grid, even after the severe amounts of complaining from the team at the start of the year. In fact Toyota remains the only team to win more than one race this year. 

But in a very un-Toyota few hours, first Sebastien Buemi drove the #8 into the #6 Penske Porsche leaving himself with a puncture and a penalty. And then the leading Toyota was deemed to have passed another car under double waved yellows and earned itself a drive-through penalty. Suddenly Kobayashi went from 11 seconds clear, to needing to make up the same deficit. He went about his business sturdily, but to no avail. Toyota now leads the manufacturers’ championship, but could have closed much further on the #6 in the drivers’ fight without unnecessarily losing itself a win.

Six races, six winners

After many years of “oh who cares, Toyota will just win everything” we’re not in a totally new era of sportscar racing at the top level. Six races into the 2024 season a car hasn’t managed to win a race twice. Those six wins have been shared by three different makes rather than truly spreading the victories between the brands, but it's an incredible process given where the championship was two years ago. 

The other exciting thing to note is how far Alpine seems to be coming, showing real pace over multiple weekends which bodes well for year two, when it gets a proper eye in. Hopefully we can see Lamborghini making similar progress soon. For once, we’ll let Peugeot lick its wounds after another difficult weekend.

GT gets interesting again

The story in the GT3 ranks has been perhaps less rosy in 2024. Yes there are more brands and more to look at, but before we arrived at COTA one of the teams run by Manthey had won four of the five races - in fact the only time another brand finished ahead of the Porsche 911s was when it rained heavily at Imola and WRT got its strategy spot on.

But in Texas the Manthey Porsches were clearly beaten. Yes, like a top team they both recovered while cars fell around them to finish second and third in class. But at no point did you expect a 911 to come out on top. This time it was Heart of Racing and its Aston Martin Vantage’s turn to win, and eventually win big. The Iron Dames put up a challenge, before an incident between Rahel Frey’s Lamborghini and Rui Andrade’s TF Sport Corvette sent the pink car out of contention. Then the challenge seemed to be coming from WRT’s BMW M4s. But throughout the race the trio of Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas were pretty imperious, taking a 30-second victory in the end. 

It doesn’t do much to reduce the dominance of Manthey PureRxcing - which sits 28 points clear of the second Manthey car - but having a third manufacturer win a race is good for the championship.

Pace from BMW at last?

The two WRT-run BMW M Hybrid V8s had interesting events. Including being in the mix for the lead for several hours, drivers struggled in the scorching Texas heat, and suffering a late race penalty. 

In the end I don’t think 7th and 13th placed finishes really reflect BMW’s weekends. The #15 and #20 were both running up with the trio of Ferraris until a spin and issues for the #15 put it down the field. Even so, the #20 was running inside the top five before the stewards struck it with two forceful blows. Firstly a drive through penalty pushed the #20 out of fourth, before late on a 100-second stop and hold penalty for a technical infringement - a penalty repeated through other cars - sent it tumbling out of the points.

Even with the disappointments, this was still the best race that BMW has had in the Hypercar class. It should give not only much cheer to the WRT team, but hopefully some solace to BMW as a whole that perhaps its car does have potential. So far across two campaigns (two seasons in IMSA one in WEC) it’s failed to live up to any hopes, and you have to wonder if BMW bosses were starting to wonder if they would ever find success. Now they have something to build on.

AF Corse makes case for more private Hypercars

So far only Porsche has actually sold LMH or LMDh cars to independent teams. Other brands have shied away from making their top-level technology available to purchase. But Ferrari’s willingness to let some private financing fund a third 499P in a different livery not in the Ferrari official team is a showcase that it would be a sensible choice for more.

Yes, the AF Corse team that won is the same team that runs Ferrari’s official team and was stacked with official Ferrari drivers. But it’s still not a Ferrari team. If other brands don’t want to sell cars completely, here is at least an option. Imagine a third Toyota battling at the front in a different livery, or someone picking up an extra Cadillac to race. Unlikely, but we can hope.