Edgar: Six-Hour Finale Provides “Slightly Nicer” Points Buffer

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Jonny Edgar believes this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship finale, which will pay out regular season points as being a six-hour race, provides himself and TF Sport with a “slightly nicer” buffer in their quest for the LMGT3 title.

Edgar, who is solo on points due to co-driver Nicky Catsburg skipping the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo due to his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship commitments, and Ben Keating missing the opening two rounds of the season due to a elbow fracture, holds an 18-point advantage over his nearest competitor, the No. 92 Manthey Porsche trio of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Yasser Shahin.

It means the FIA Silver-rated Briton and co-drivers Keating and Catsburg will need to finish fifth or higher in their No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, no matter where the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo places, or sixth or better if Edgar claims Hyperpole this afternoon.

“The goal, no matter what, is to do the best job possible, whether that’s P5 or P4 or if the best possible is a P9, then that’s what you’ve got to do,” Edgar told Sportscar365.

“There’s a bit of seeing what other people are doing. With a wet practice, it’s hard to know where it runs at in the dry.

“We don’t really have an idea of where we feel like we’ll stack up compared to everyone.

“But it’s the same as every weekend. We’ll just do our best. There’s nothing more than we can do than that.

“If we do everything right, and in the end it’s not enough, then we can’t change that, and it would have been a great season.”

Edgar acknowledged the lack of 1.5x points, which are handed out for what’s usually the season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain, has played to their benefit.

This weekend marks the first WEC season finale that hasn’t provided additional points since 2017, when Bahrain was then contested as a six-hour race.

“It changes things, also two different tracks,” he said. Barcelona and Monza aren’t bad tracks for the car but I think also Qatar and Bahrain are pretty strong for the Corvette historically.

“We won in Qatar last year and the year before we had a double podium in Bahrain.

“There’s the points system change but also the track change has changed. It’s impossible to know how it would have been if we would have done the calendar as intended.

“But I think being in the lead is slightly nicer not having the 1.5x points [on deck].

“Right now, an 18-point lead means more. If you could have scored 38 points here, it would be a much less comfortable position.”

Should Edgar win the title, he would become the first solo driver to achieve the feat in the LMGT3 era and the first out of any WEC category since Lietz, ironically his title rival this weekend, who claimed the 2015 GTE-Pro championship alone.

“It’s a weird situation and a bit of a shame for Ben and Nicky,” said Edgar. “They’ve been here for the most of the season and have obviously done a great job.

“If I do end up winning it, it would be a shame that they wouldn’t technically be champions as well.

“All the teammates I’ve had have done a great job. Ben and Nicky most of the season, Nico [Varrone] in Brazil, Blake [McDonald] in Spa and Imola.

“I’ve been lucky even when we’ve had to make changes, we’ve had great people to come and step in, so that hasn’t impacted us at all.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John