Toyota Steals Manufacturers’ Title With Bahrain Victory

The No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid completed an unlikely comeback to score victory in the season-closing 8 Hours of Bahrain and deliver the Japanese marque the manufacturers’ title at the expense of Porsche.

Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa converted pole position into a second win of the season and a third in total for Toyota thanks to a late pass by Buemi on the No. 5 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry of Matt Campbell.

However, Porsche still came away with the drivers’ title for the sister No. 6 crew of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer, who finished outside of the points in 11th.

Toyota’s No. 8 car had looked out of contention during the middle phase of the eight-hour race before a pair of safety car interventions brought it back into the mix.

The first of these occurred with two-and-a-half hours to go as the No. 88 Proton Competition Ford stopped out on track, which eliminated a 30-second deficit between Hirakawa and the race-leading No. 51 Ferrari 499P.

Then, at the start of the penultimate hour, Hirakawa was able to get into the pits and hand over the No. 8 car to Buemi just as the virtual safety car was called again in response to the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 parking up trackside with a terminal problem.

This led to a variation in strategies as the No. 51 Ferrari and the No. 6 Porsche that had been running in second stayed out until the pits closed, while the No. 5 Porsche of Campbell pitted under the virtual safety car.

Campbell appeared to be in a strong position to take the win that would guarantee Porsche a sweep of the drivers’ and manufacturers’ crowns, but Buemi set a new fastest lap of the race immediately after his final stop with a little under an hour to go.

The Swiss driver then proceeded to slash an eight-second deficit to Campbell at the time of the Australian’s final trip to the pits before making the decisive move of the race at the Turn 8 right-hander with 39 minutes to go.

Buemi pulled away to the tune of 27 seconds in the remaining time, giving Toyota its sixth consecutive title including both world manufacturers’ and teams’ crowns.

Toyota’s sister No. 7 car had earlier dropped out of the race with fuel pump issues after Nyck de Vries had enjoyed a spell in the lead before steadily falling down the order.

With Campbell struggling with an old front-right tire in the closing stages, the Australian was reeled in by the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi, who was able to pass the ailing Porsche on the final lap to take second place.

That meant that Toyota beat Porsche by six points in the final reckoning.

Giovinazzi had earlier passed the surviving No. 93 Peugeot of Mikkel Jensen to grab third with 15 minutes to go, with Jensen hanging on to fourth place amid a late onslaught from the No. 35 Alpine A424 of Paul-Loup Chatin.

BMW’s only finisher was the No. 15 M Hybrid V8 in sixth, ahead of the solo Cadillac V-Series.R in seventh and the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche in eighth.

Will Stevens had been part of the lead fight after the final safety car period in the No. 12 JOTA car, only to suffer a puncture that left that car 14th and last in Hypercar.

Estre, Lotterer and Vanthoor endured a nightmare race that yielded the drivers’ crown by virtue of the fact that its only rivals for the championship, the No. 7 Toyota and the No. 50 Ferrari, were unable to take the win they needed to overhaul them.

Vanthoor lost ground from having to do a longer final stop, before the Belgian was handed two penalties for incidents, one involving the No. 15 BMW of his brother Dries and the other the No. 36 Alpine of Charles Milesi.

The No. 50 Ferrari ended up one place behind in 12th when Fuoco picked up a left-rear puncture when he was tagged by Milesi’s spinning Alpine.

AF Corse beats TF Sport in Entertaining LMGT3 Finale

The final win of the season in LMGT3 went to the No. 55 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Alessio Rovera, Simon Mann and Francois Heriau, marking Ferrari’s second consecutive class win after the sister No. 54 car triumphed at Fuji.

Rovera came out on top in a close battle with the two TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs, which completed the podium with the No. 81 machine of Charlie Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy second ahead of the sister No. 82 entry shared by Dani Juncadella, Sebastien Baud and Hiroshi Koizumi.

The final safety car period led to a significant shuffle of the order, with a comfortable lead for Andrade having been wiped out by the previous intervention in the sixth hour.

When the race resumed with 90 minutes left on the clock it was the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo that led in the hands of Alex Riberas, with eventual winner Rovera running fifth in the No. 55 Ferrari.

As Riberas tumbled from first to 10th amid chaotic scenes, Rovera swept into the lead, at one stage heading a Ferrari one-two ahead of Davide Rigon’s No. 54 car, before Eastwood mounted a fightback to retake the lead ahead of the final stops.

However, swifter pit work from the AF Corse team put Rovera back in front, and the Italian was able to hang on to win by a three-second margin from Eastwood.

Juncadella held off Matteo Cairoli in the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 to make it a double TF Sport podium, while the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R was fifth to seal second in the LMGT3 standings.

Rigon slipped to an eventual seventh behind the best of the United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evos, the No. 59 car, in sixth.

RESULTS: 8 Hours of Bahrain