POINTS SCORED IN BOTH HYPERCAR AND LMGT3 FOR TEAM WRT AT COTA
The Lone Star Le Mans returned in spectacular fashion, drawing 65,089 passionate fans to the Circuit of the Americas. Despite scorching temperatures in the cockpits and pitlane, the race delivered intense action and challenging conditions. The Hypercars marked the best weekend of the season for the BMW M V8 Hybrid, although penalties ultimately didn’t reflect their on-track performance.
After having both LMDh machinery graduate through to Hyperpole and starting from P7 (#20) and P8 (#15), BMW M Team WRT's Hypercars excelled in the opening lap. Marco Wittmann (#15) and René Rast (#20) had a stellar start, maintaining relentless pace and rapidly advancing to P4 and P5. The BMW Hypercar #20 even took the lead of the 6 Hours of COTA, setting a positive tone and promising outlook for the final two events of the season.
In the LMGT3 garages, Ahmad Al Harthy rocketed from P15 to P5 in his opening stint, showcasing, with his teammates Maxime Martin and Valentino Rossi, a strong performance before the #46 suffered a power steering issue and had to retire less than 20 minutes before the chequered flag. Meanwhile, car #31, driven by Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael, and Darren Leung, fought hard for P5 despite two penalties.
The FIA WEC now heads to Japan for an exciting race at Fuji International Speedway on September 15th before the season finale in Bahrain on November 2nd.
Vincent VOSSE, Team Principal Team WRT: “The weekend had some ups and downs. Of course, we are not happy with the final result but there are also some very positive things to take away. We were the only ones who could keep up with the Ferrari for the first half of the race and that was a very positive point. Now we have to learn how to do it until the end of the race without making any mistakes. But let’s be positive and focus on the next race which is in two weeks in Fuji. In LMGT3, it has been a disappointing result. We did what we could with car 31. We had a technical failure on car #46, which we know was a power steering issue, however we will investigate further to discover the cause of the failure. Our opponents finished in front of us, so we lost some points again to the two leaders. We must see how we can improve this in Fuji”.
Raffaele MARCIELLO, driver #15: “Austin has shown that for sure we have gained speed. We were able to fight more this weekend. It was the first time we were able to achieve it. We are going in the right direction, and we have got good points to work on. We are improving and now let’s see what Fuji brings, even if every track is different.”
René RAST, driver #20: “On the one hand, it was positive that we had the pace to drive in the top five and even reach the top three. How the race ended, however, is of course frustrating. Two penalties knocked us out of the points in the end. We’ll attack again in Fuji, and we hope to be just as competitive there as we have been here”.
Sean GELAEL, driver #31: “It’s been a very up and down race. We finished in P5 and got some points, but unfortunately, we have been behind the two Porsches we are fighting for the championship. But we did not lose too many points, so I think it was damage limitations. We lost around 50 seconds in mistakes and unfortunate events. So obviously the potential is there, and we will fight again in Fuji and in Bahrain. We still have two rounds to go, and the last round is worth 1.5x points.”
Ahmad AL HARTHY, driver #46: “I would sum the Austin race up with: from P15 to P4 with 15 minutes to go. What an amazing job by everybody in the team to get us climbing up the entire time. We tried something different, it looked like it was working, we kept our nose clean as much as we could, we kept the pit stops clean, we kept away from penalties. But this is motorsports. When you get a mechanical problem, it happens. And unfortunately it hurts when it’s 15 minutes to go. Now Fuji comes fast and hopefully we can get a good result there.”