AF Corse’s Robert Shwartzman took the overall lead with 41 minutes to go when Toyota GAZOO Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi was forced to serve a drive-through penalty for ignoring a yellow flag. From there, he was able to hold off the charging Toyota driver to win the FIA World Endurance Championship Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of the Americas Sunday (Sept. 1) with teammates Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye. It is the first victory for the privateer Ferrari squad.
“There was a lot of pressure in the [final] laps, to be honest, since my tires were going away completely,” Shwartzman said after the race. “So, I was sliding all over the place and I knew that any mistake would cost us [everything]. At the end of the day, I’m very happy that I was able to keep [the car] on the track.”
The margin of victory was 1.78 seconds over Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries. Ferrari AF Corse’s Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen were third in their factory Ferrari 499P, then Chip Ganassi Racing’s Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook in the sole Cadillac in the field. Signatech Alpine’s Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi were fifth.
Ferrari AF Corse’s Antonio Giovinazzi started from pole and led early over Kubica. Further back, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Earl Bamber and Habsburg came together under braking for turn 12, resulting in Habsburg ending up in the runoff.
The stewards didn’t like this very much. They determined that Habsburg initiated the contact and thus, gave him a drive-through penalty.
Giovinazzi and Kubica ran away from the field early to settle the race themselves. However, they were both using energy more quickly. That led to a position switch 35 minutes into the race.
After the first round of stops, Kubica kept himself ahead until Giovinazzi spun early in the second hour began to stretch out the lead to nearly five seconds. For Giovinazzi, trouble struck near the end of the second hour. The car suffered a gearbox issue a couple of corners from the pits.
Giovinazzi was able to coast the car onto pit road, but stalled before he could get to his pit stall. Once the crew ran down and pushed the car to their assigned stall, the call was made to put the No. 51 Ferrari 499P in the garage. The team ended up being done for the day.
As the race continued on, the main rival to the No. 83 Ferrari ended up being Toyota’s No. 7. Conway started in ninth and slowly made his way forward. He was able to dispatch of Bamber while he was distracted by a competitor.
After the first stops, Conway dispatched of the two BMW M Team WRT BMW Hybrid V8s despite both cars having an energy advantage over everyone else in the field. Eventually, de Vries was able to catch Ye in the Ferrari late in the fourth hour.
The two drivers battled for a few laps before strategy came into play. Toyota GAZOO Racing chose to pit de Vries early in order to take fresh rubber and put Kobayashi in the car.
When Ye pitted a lap later and handed over to Shwartzman, Kobayashi was able to work the undercut and jump over the Ferrari. When the sequence of stops was complete, Kobayashi was in the overall lead.
During the round of stops, Peugeot TotalEnergies’ Paul di Resta stalled exiting turn 10 with an apparent driveline issue. That brought out a full course yellow as well.
Kobayashi pulled out to a lead of nearly 11 seconds before disaster struck. With 45 minutes to go, Kobayashi was given a drive-through penalty for not respecting yellow flag when di Resta was in the process of pulling off.
When Kobayashi rejoined after serving his penalty, he had dropped from the lead to almost 10 seconds behind Shwartzman. Despite the penalty, Kobayashi was faster than Shwartzman and was slowly reeling him back in.
Proton Competition’s Dennis Olsen had a mechanical failure in his Ford Mustang GT3 and stalled in the Esses. Prior to the full course yellow being flown to retrieve the car, Kobayashi went off the track to avoid The Heart of Racing’s Alex Riberas.
Given the previous penalty, the thought was that the stewards would come down hard on Kobayashi. As of this writing, they have not. If they do, we will update this article.
Kobayashi was able to give himself a puncher’s chance of victory in the closing laps. However, with two laps to go, he went wide exiting turn 1 and lost more than a second. That was all Shwartzman needed to take the victory.
In LMGT3, The Heart of Racing’s Ian James started from pole in his Aston Martin. Vista AF Corse’s Francois Heriau was able to get around Sarah Bovy in the Iron Dames Lamborghini on the first lap to take second.
Bovy was eventually able to get back around Heriau for second, but by that point, James was gone. He spent his stint in the car gradually pulling away from the rest of the class.
When Daniel Mancinelli took over, the advantage continued to expand. Just before halfway, he had a 20-second advantage.
Further back, the Iron Dames Lamborghini with Rahel Frey driving was racing with TF Sport’s Rui Andrade for second when the two drivers had contact in turn 15. That led to debris getting on track that led to a full course yellow.
While the TF Sport Corvette was able to get away with the incident, Frey was forced to go into the garage for suspension repairs. She would eventually rejoin the race five laps down.
The lead was as high as 25 seconds before Mancinelli handed over to Riberas. However, the Manthey PureRxcing Porsche of Klaus Bachler was on the charge. He was able to cut the lead down from 25 to 16 seconds during his first tire run.
However, when the teams came in for their final stop with a little more than an hour to go, the Manthey squad had some issues. That resulted in Bachler losing more than 10 seconds in the pits to Riberas.
From that point on, Riberas was able to maintain his advantage and took the victory. It is the team’s first victory in the WEC and a very dominant one. Outside of pit stop sequences, the No. 27 Aston Martin led the whole way from pole.
The Heart of Racing’s margin of victory was 20.538 seconds over Manthey PureRxcing’s Bachler, Alex Malykhin and Joel Sturm. Manthey EMA’s Richard Lietz, Morris Schuring and Yasser Shahin were third, while United Autosports’ No. 59 McLaren for Nicolas Costa, James Cottingham and Gregoire Saucy were nearly a minute behind in fourth. Team WRT’s Augusto Farfus, Sean Galael and Darren Leung were fifth in their BMW.
FIA World Endurance Championship Lone Star Le Mans Unofficial Results
WEC teams will likely not return to their bases before traveling overseas to Japan for the penultimate race of the season, the 6 Hours of Fuji. That race will be Sept. 15, but due to the time difference, will begin on Sept. 14 in the United States. Coverage is scheduled to begin at 9:30 p.m. ET and will air live on a combination of Motor Trend and Max’s B/R Sports Add-on.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.