Ferrari AF Corse Wins WEC Lone Star Le Mans With Dramatic Finish at COTA

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Robert Shwartzman held off Kamui Kobayashi in the closing laps of the Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, to bring Ferrari’s AF Corse team the victory in the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The race on Sunday was the lone American stop on the WEC schedule.

Toyota Gazoo Racing held the lead when Kobayashi was given a drive-through penalty for a yellow zone violation in the final hour of the six-hour race. Trailing by as many as 12 seconds, the Japanese driver closed to within 1.780 second of the winning Ferrari 499P at the checkered flag as all the competitors pushed the limits on the Circuit of the Americas course.

“There was a lot of pressure,” said Shwartzman, who co-drove with Robert Kubica and Yifea Ye. “The tires were going away and I was sliding all over the place.”

It was not clear if Kobayashi accelerated out of the yellow flag zone at the Turn 11 hairpin. Or, if he failed to slow down sufficiently. The flag flew due to a stalled Peugeot. The switch in positions at the finish resulted in the sixth different winner in as many races.

The No. 83 Ferrari, which is designated as a privateer third entry for Ferrari, benefitted from early tire strategy before a setback. Kubica started the race with hard right rear tire and three medium Michelins and eventually took the lead. Under pressure from Toyota, the team chose to double stint four hard tires and gave up the lead to the No. 7 Toyota midway in the race.

The reversal for the No. 7 Toyota co-driven by Mike Conway and Nyck DeVries had a silver lining. On a desultory day for Porsche Penske Motorsport, Toyota advanced to an 11-point lead in the manufacturers championship with two rounds remaining. Porsche dropped out of the lead for the first time since winning the season opener in Qatar.

The factory Ferrari team’s No. 50 of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen took third, 26 seconds off the pace on a hot day at the Circuit of The Americas.

After a rough opening lap, the Cadillac Racing team of Chip Ganassi Racing missed the podium by 20 seconds and finished fourth. Starting third, Earl Bamber lost two positions at the start, then an altercation with the Alpine driven by Ferdinand Habsburg dropped the V-Series.R to eighth, minus a front dive plane.

“We managed to execute the race well and did the most we could,” said Bamber. “It would have been great to get P3, but we came home with a solid result.”

The factory Porsches of Penske also got off to a slow start. The No. 5 entry pitted at the end of the first lap to remove the cap inadvertently left on its air pressure monitor. A run-in with the No. 8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi dropped the No. 6 Porsche down the order and a late drive-through for a yellow flag infringement forced the team to scramble at the finish.

“Not ideal,” said Andre Lotterer, who retained the lead in driver points along with Lauren Vanthoors and Kevin Estre. “We had a good race car and we were able to move forward through strategy.”

The No. 51 Ferrari was forced to retire after pole winner Antonio Giovinazzi’s contact with a Peugeot. Toyota’s No. 8 entry fell out of the points after Buemi’s 30-second penalty for contact with the No. 6 Porsche.

The Jota Porsche, winners at Spa, fell down the order with an electrical problem and finished 10th. With Rene Rast at the wheel, the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 led at the end of the second hour and the team led again at the end of the fourth hour during pit stops by the leaders. But in the final hour, the team was assessed a 100-second penalty for a “technical infringement” from the officials that dropped it out of the points.

GT3LM

In GT3LM, the American-based Heart of Racing team heard the national anthem from the top step of the podium after leading consistently in their Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo. Alex Riberas, Daniel Mancinelli and pole winner Ian James brought this year’s Aston Martin to its first victory and were trailed across the line by the two Porsche 911 Rs of Manthey Racing.

In the battle of the American brands, the No. 77 Proton Competition Mustang GT3 finished sixth and the No. 82 Corvette Z06 GT3.R of TF Sport took eighth in class.