Bahrain Post-Race Notebook

***Toyota’s victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Bahrain season finale with the No. 8 crew of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa marked its eighth consecutive triumph at the circuit, as it extended its run of Hypercar/LMP1 manufacturers’ and team’s titles going back to the 2018/19 superseason.

***Asked for his immediate reaction to Toyota’s comeback victory, which came after the sister No. 7 GR010 Hybrid suffered a terminal fuel pressure issue, Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima told Sportscar365: “I would say it’s a mix of satisfaction and relief. In the end we had the pace because of the strategy.”

***He continued: “The strategy on car No. 8 didn’t look as if it would work until very late in the race. We have to say that the final safety car was a very nice one for us and it made the strategy work. Somehow we had luck, but through the season we had a lot of ups and downs. We had a lot of tough times this year, but we kept fighting and putting in the effort as a team, and perhaps this effort brought us some luck in the end.”

***Nakajima was also keen to pay tribute to Porsche for winning the drivers’ title with the No. 6 crew that includes his former SUPER GT and Super Formula teammate Andre Lotterer. “This year the championship was very tight and tough for us, which I believe made us stronger, so I really appreciate our competitors,” he said. “Big congratulations to car No. 6, and especially Andre – I’m happy for him!”

***Buemi picked up his 26th career WEC win while Hartley took his 23rd, surpassing Mike Conway for second in the all-time winner’s list. Hirakawa picked up his sixth win, winning twice at the same circuit for the first time in his fledgling career.

***It also meant that the No. 8 crew leapfrogged from seventh to fourth in the final drivers’ standings, with a final tally of 109 points leaving them only four points shy of Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries in the sister No. 7 Toyota.

***Vista AF Corse meanwhile picked up its second straight win in LMGT3 with the No. 55 Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera, Francois Heriau and Simon Mann, following the sister No. 54 crew’s win at Fuji – prior to which neither car had scored a podium.

***Rovera’s class win was his fifth in total and his first since his GTE-Am triumph at Spa in 2023, while Heriau and Mann picked up their first wins in the WEC. It promotes the No. 55 crew to third in the LMGT3 standings behind the two Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 Rs.

***Rovera was also named the Goodyear Wingfoot Award winner for both Bahrain and the full season. The Italian driver beat his nearest rival, Team WRT BMW’s Augusto Farfus, by 17 points in the final standings, which can be viewed in full here.

***Porsche Penske Motorsport’s drivers-winning trio of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Lotterer were finally credited with two points for 10th following the penalty for the No. 51 Ferrari. It meant the final margin between the No. 6 crew and No. 50 Ferrari drivers Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen was 37 points.

***Lotterer scored his second WEC drivers’ title a full 12 years on from his first for Audi, becoming only the second driver after Hartley to have clinched the prize for two different manufacturers. Estre became the first Porsche driver to win titles in two different classes, having previously won in GTE-Pro in 2018/19.

***Vanthoor becomes the first Belgian to win the overall prize and the second across all classes after 2013 LMP2 champion and current SUPER GT racer Bertrand Baguette.

***Porsche Penske managing director Jonathan Diuguid hailed the team for an “amazing job all day” as the No. 5 car looked in a strong position to win before two safety car periods in the second half of the race shuffled the order, while also praising the title-winning No. 6 crew for its recovery from Vanthoor’s difficult opening stint.

***Diuguid told Sportscar365: “It was a pretty hectic start; we were just trying not to get hit, and I think [the No. 6 car] was 16th after the first lap. To be able to work that car up to be in a controlling position before the Virtual Safety Cars came out, I think is an amazing feat in the end. We just didn’t have the pace to fight with the Toyota and ultimately the No. 51 Ferrari [that passed Matt Campbell on the last lap].”

***On why the No. 5 car was only given three fresh tires instead of four at its final stop, leaving Campbell vulnerable to attack from Buemi, Diuguid added: “We had more than that left but one of them was heavily used so we didn’t want to put it on the car. On a couple of laps, they were catching us three seconds a lap. We just weren’t in a situation to fight. I don’t think we would have done anything differently.”

***Diuguid also didn’t express any disappointment at the No. 6 crew’s tough end of the season: “We came and put everything out on the table today,” he said. “In the end it wasn’t enough. We have a lot to be proud of. There’s nothing we’re going to hang our heads on or be sad about. Maybe we missed the last 10 percent but other than that we succeeded on 90 percent of it. It was an amazing year.”

***Ferrari head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo explained that early contact for its drivers’ title-contending No. 50 car caused excessive degradation during Molina’s opening double stint, but didn’t create any lasting damage.

***Cannizzo told reporters: “It looks like the contact damaged something; we had less downforce and this caused too much stress on the tires. The tires had big degradation in the first stint and the second stint was clearly impacted by this. We changed the nose, but the damage was done to the tires. When we changed the tires, the pace came back.”

***On the incident that left the No. 50 Ferrari 11th at the finish, he added: “They were unfortunate with the snap of Milesi with the Alpine, which gave us another puncture. We lost something that could be a P3 considering the pace at that time.”

***For his part, Milesi believes there is nothing he could have done to avoid the contact with the No. 50 Ferrari. “As I tried to overtake the Ferrari, the rear suddenly locked up,” he told Sportscar365. “We don’t know if it was the brakes or something in the engine, but I completely spun. It’s difficult to understand, it’s not like I braked super-late. Just a strange thing on the rear, and from there we got some damage on the front.”

***Despite that setback, Alpine won its battle against BMW to claim unofficial ‘best of the rest’ honors in the manufacturers’ standings thanks to the fourth place finish earned by Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Jules Gounon in the No. 35 car.

***Oddly, despite missing two races earlier in the year due to injury, Habsburg ended up as Alpine’s highest-scoring driver in the final standings on 43 points. Milesi, who swapped cars for the Bahrain finale, ended up on 30 points, while Chatin, who was stood down for the Fuji round to give Gounon more experience, scored 29.

***BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos revealed that a terminal engine issue led to retirement for the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8. The team then completed an engine change and did a test fire before the end of the race to prepare the car for Sunday’s rookie test.

***Peugeot’s first podium of 2024, and first since last year’s Monza round, wasn’t enough to allow it to overhaul BMW for fifth in the manufacturers’ table, although the French marque stayed easily clear of seventh-placed Cadillac.

***Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie revealed the No. 94 car retired due to a hybrid system issue. “It’s a shame because their pace was very strong, even stronger than the No. 93 at certain points,” he said. “We could have hoped for even better result without that. But it was still very positive starting from P14 and P18.”

***The promotion of the No. 93 Peugeot to a podium finish following Ferrari’s penalty meant Cadillac and Lamborghini were the only two of the eight Hypercar manufacturers that completed the season not to manage a top-three finish. A promising run for the solo SC63 was ended by a water pressure issue in the final hour.

***Alex Lynn wasn’t credited with scoring points in the race as he only completed a single stint at the wheel of the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R. The British racer told Sportscar365 that he was due to take the car to the checkered flag, but the team decided against it with an eye on tire allocation and fuel timing with driver changes after the pair of late-race safety cars.

***Proton Competition’s Neel Jani was left to rue another chance of a strong result going up in smoke after the team lost a lap due to penalties, one for Julien Andlauer overtaking under double yellows and the other for Harry Tincknell making contact with the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus. “The last race of the year was basically how our year was,” Jani told Sportscar365. “So many ‘if’s and ‘could have’s but it never worked out.”

***An eventual 12th place finish meant the No. 99 crew finished fourth and last in the FIA World Cup for Hypercar teams, compounding a day to forget for the team as both of its Ford Mustang GT3s retired with mechanical problems.

***The Akkodis ASP Lexus team also suffered a double retirement with its pair of Lexus RC F GT3s. The No. 78 car dropped out early on with a rear suspension issue while Arnold Robin was at the wheel, while the sister No. 87 was eliminated by a throttle problem.

***While the rookie test on Sunday marked the end of the season for the majority of the WEC paddock, most Hypercar squads are staying on to sample prototype 2026 tires in a one-day Michelin test on Tuesday. It follows the French manufacturer’s decision to delay the introduction of its new range of products originally slated for 2025.

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report