Qatar Post Race Notebook

***Porsche Penske Motorsport celebrated a historic first FIA World Endurance Championship victory in last weekend’s Qatar 1812km, with Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer coming out on top after a dominant run by the No. 6 Porsche 963.

***It marked Porsche’s 18th top class victory in WEC competition and its first since Circuit of The Americas 2017 when Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber steered their Porsche 919 Hybrid to victory.

***Lotterer ended a winless run of almost nine years (3,227 days) since his previous WEC victory, which came with Audi back in 2015 at Spa. Vanthoor meanwhile became the first Belgian driver ever to win in the top class of the championship.

***With the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Will Stevens, Callum Ilott and Norman Nato finishing second and Porsche Penske’s No. 5 car driven by Frederic Makowiecki, Michael Christensen and pole-sitter Matt Campbell third, it was the first top class podium sweep for a manufacturer since Spa 2012 when Audi achieved the same feat.

***The No. 38 JOTA Porsche retired in the final hour with a hybrid-related electrical issue. Oliver Rasmussen was forced to jump out of the car per high-voltage safety protocol after the car’s hybrid safety light briefly went red while on pit lane. JOTA technical director Tomoki Takahashi explained: “The reason we had the red light was the electrical isolation in the car went below the threshold. When that happens, it means something internal is broken or water has leaked or something.”

***Stevens explained that the No. 12 JOTA car went through the race triple-stinting its tires, except for one mid-race double stint. “It’s a bit of a weird track for tires because most people tended to struggle on their first stint and less so in the second stint, which normally is the opposite,” he explained. “If you over-push on new tires, you can easily get graining, which is what pushed us into doing triples.

***Stevens added: “That’s why we were changing drivers at every pitstop. Doing three stints at this track is quite tough, and I had more experience on this tire, so I was always got in the car for the first stint. We committed to that strategy very early, so everything we did was to try and make that work. But Penske was super-quick doing double stints. Whether that would have been better for us, we’ll never know.”

***On JOTA’s inability to match the Penske Porsches on pace, team co-owner Sam Hignett added: “They’ve just got something on tire warm-up that nobody else has got. It’s ridiculous. It’s worth tens of seconds [over the race], so we’ve got some work to do on that.”

***Estre admitted that traffic “was always a struggle” in the race, after having had three separate collisions with LMGT3 cars in the closing hours that ultimately damaged his Porsche and resulted in a late-race stop to replace the left-side number plate.

***The Frenchman said: “Obviously many guys out there in GT3 are not used to this traffic. And the gap on this track was quite big. It’s probably bigger than some others. I don’t want to blame anyone but it was definitely sometimes very difficult in the traffic. Hopefully it’s going to be better next time because I’ve never had as much contact in one season that what I had this race.”

***The majority of the Hypercar competitors remained on Michelin’s hard compound throughout the race, including the two Porsche Penske entries. The team’s managing director Jonathan Diuguid indicated that Cadillac and Peugeot both tried mediums but it was not enough for the factory Porsche squad to switch during the cooler night-time hours.

***Diuguid paid tribute to the strong run by the No. 93 Peugeot 9X8, which ran out of fuel with less than two laps to go after running second for the majority of the race. “Peugeot was keeping us honest and I feel gutted for those guys,” he told Sportscar365. “They ran a really smooth race all day and to have an issue there on the last lap and lose the podium, I wouldn’t want to wish that on anybody.”

***Adding insult to injury, the Peugeot, which limped to the finish on EV power only to initially be classified in seventh, was disqualified post-race due to Jean-Eric Vergne ‘not rejoining the pit lane after having ERS deployment speed below the BoP limit’ as well as not taking the car to parc ferme.

***The results are subject to “additional technical scrutineering” of the No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, which finished fourth in the hands of Bamber, Alex Lynn and Sebastien Bourdais.

***Cadillac was able to recover to fourth by performing one pitstop fewer than most of its Hypercar rivals, which Bourdais said was always the Chip Ganassi Racing-run squad’s intention heading into the race. “We stuck to the plan and soon we saw that guys were getting away from the 10-stint strategy,” said the Frenchman. “And we said if we can stick with it then that could be a really good result, and that’s exactly what happened.”

***Toyota Gazoo Racing’s two GR010 Hybrids finished sixth and ninth, marking the first time since the Japanese manufacturer’s double disqualification at Silverstone 2018 for ride height infractions that a Toyota failed to finish on the overall podium.

***Toyota driver Ryo Hirakawa said that the graining issues that plagued the team’s build-up to the Qatar were resolved for the race, but that the GR010 Hybrid lacked ultimate pace. “We knew already from the November test we were not fast, but the result was worse than we expected. We are far behind our competitors, so I’m quite disappointed actually. But this is the new era of the WEC.”

***Newly-minted factory Ferrari driver Yifei Ye was satisfied to finish fifth in the third-string No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P together with Robert Kubica and Robert Shwartzman. “It was the first race for us as a driver lineup, and for the crew, so to make it through the ten hours with no mistakes or problems is a great achievement. It was the maximum we could achieve with what we had.”

***Porsche has taken an early lead in the Hypercar world manufacturer’s championship, with the German manufacturer holding a 15-point advantage over Cadillac, while is Toyota third holding 18 points. Lamborghini, Peugeot and Isotta Fraschini were the only manufacturers to not walk away with points.

***Lamborghini driver Daniil Kvyat feels the Italian marque can now focus more on the raw speed of its SC63 after seeing the checkered flag five laps down on the car’s debut. “We knew with the amount of laps we did before coming here, performance was not the first thing on our mind,” said the ex-Formula 1 driver. “Qualifying was our first qualifying simulation ever and the race was our first ever race simulation. Given that, we can be happy with that foundation in terms of reliability, no major issues.”

***Isotta Fraschini was the sole non-finisher in the Hypercar class, dropping out with a suspension problem. The marque’s motorsport manager Claudio Berro commented: “The problem was repairable, but it deserved further investigation and was not worth taking the risk. We must now examine at home the problem that stopped us today, improve our performance in qualifying, and get closer to the top of the ranking in the race.”

***Hertz Team JOTA leads the FIA World Cup for Hypercar teams with its No. 12 Porsche, with an 11-point gap over the No. 83 Ferrari. Both JOTA Porsches as well as the three AF Corse-run Ferrari 499Ps were cleared of any wrongdoing in qualifying after they were placed under investigation for possible breaches in refueling procedure.

***Proton Competition’s No. 99 Porsche 963 was third of the non-factory cars home in 10th place. Neel Jani told Sportscar365: “We had a reliable car and at times decent pace. It was a hard week since the Prologue for the whole team and many late nights for the mechanics. We did not test here and also lost quite a bit of driving time in the Prologue with issues. So in the end it comes down the fact we were always a step or two behind the opposition.”

***Despite his nationality being given as St. Kitts and Nevis on the WEC entry list, Manthey PureRxcing’s Alex Malykhin revealed after the team’s LMGT3 victory that he in fact races under a British licence, as reflected by the Union Jack on his race suit.

***Vista AF Corse driver Davide Rigon won the Goodyear WingFoot award, which recognizes the most consistent performers in the LMGT3 class across a double stint.

***The No. 77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 finished 11th in class after starting from the rear of the 18-car LMGT3 field due to electrical issues that prevented it from qualifying. Ryan Hardwick revealed that a replacement part had to be flown in by Ford Performance.

***Two LMGT3 runners failed to reach the finish. The pole-winning No. 81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R was withdrawn when damage to the electrical harness was discovered during a spring change, which the team opted to make for development reasons after losing considerable ground early in the race with a trip to the garage to address a gear shift problem. The No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 was eliminated by a suspected engine problem.

***The race ran to the full 1812 kms (1125 miles), having reached 335 laps some four minutes before the maximum ten-hour duration. The faster-than-expected pace was attributed to there being only two Full Course Yellows and no safety cars.

John Dagys contributed to this report