Despite all of the manufacturers making their presence known in Qatar, once the action got underway Friday (Feb. 28), Ferrari came out to play. Ferrari AF Corse’s Antonio Fuoco took the lead with 54 minutes to go from Robert Kubica, then held on to win the FIA World Endurance Championship Qatar 1812km with teammates Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen.
“Today, we did a really good job with Miguel [Molina] and Nicklas [Nielsen],” Fuoco said after the race. “We managed the race [really well]. I was just managing behind Robert [Kubica] and [taking care of the tires]. I’m really happy for the team [and] let’s hope we keep going on this direction.”
The margin of victory was 2.348 seconds over the customer AF Corse Ferrari of Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye. The No. 51 Ferrari of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi were third to complete the podium sweep. BMW M Team WRT’s Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor were fourth, while Toyota GAZOO Racing’s Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi were fifth.
Calado led the race from the overall pole in his Ferrari 499P and dominated the early going. A virtual safety car due to the Iron Lynx Mercedes of Christian Ried spinning into the gravel resulted in Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Jenson Button and Alex Lynn running one-two after pit stops.
Realistically, the Cadillacs were the most likely cars to challenge the Ferraris for supremacy. Then, the worst-case scenario happened.
Button paced the field fairly slowly for the restart, but Lynn hit the accelerator too early. The result was that Lynn ran into the back of Button, heavily damaging both cars and ultimately bringing out another safety car.
Disaster for Cadillac! 🤯
— FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) February 28, 2025
Teammates Jenson Button and Alex Lynn collide into each other under the safety car!
Watch live on https://t.co/IPZa0nw0B2 🎥#WEC #Qatar1812km @lusailcircuit pic.twitter.com/no6VarzHTf
Both teams were able to continue, but were completely out of the hunt. Lynn’s No. 12 ended up a lap down, but got the lap back. Lynn, Norman Nato and Will Stevens managed to salvage points in eighth.
Button’s No. 38 came back into the race seven laps down, then had a later trip to the garage due to throttle sensor issues. As a result, Button, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber ended up 16th, 11 laps down.
The contact gave Giovinazzi in the overall lead and Ferrari the first three spots in the order. Unfortunately, the team self-destructed in the middle of and seemingly took themselves out of the hunt due to penalties.
First, Giovinazzi violated the virtual safety car procedure by exceeding the speed limit of 80 kph (approximately 49.7 mph), which resulted in a drive-through penalty. He then had contact with BMW M Team WRT’s Sheldon van der Linde and got a five-second penalty for it. Then Pier Guidi sped in the pit lane and got another drive-through penalty. A fourth infraction for overtaking while off the track resulted in another 10-second penalty in the pits.
That allowed the customer AF Corse Ferrari to pick up the scraps. Yifei Ye was able to put himself into the overall lead by keeping himself out of trouble.
Further back, the Toyota GAZOO Racing team drove themselves up into contention. The No. 7 started in seventh overall and drove up onto the overall podium in the second half of the race. Meanwhile, the No. 8 drove up to sixth.
Just getting to sixth was an accomplishment for the team after a miserable qualifying session Thursday. There, Brendon Hartley spun the Toyota GR010 Hybrid on his quick lap in the 10-minute first session. A second attempt to set a quick time resulted in an off-course excursion. As a result, Hartley failed to set a competitive time and ended up starting 17th.
Pit strategy allowed the No. 50 Ferrari with Nielsen at the wheel to take the overall lead in the eighth hour. However, Kubica was faster than Nielsen and managed to chew into the advantage. Calado, insistent upon making up for his teammate’s issues, drove the No. 51 Ferrari back into contention for the win.
The two drivers had different pit strategies, meaning that Kubica would have to pit approximately five laps before Nielsen. When Nielsen pitted, he took on two tires, but had to struggle on cold tires.
Kubica was able to make up the margin on Nielsen and sweep around the outside to take the lead. As Fuoco (who replaced Nielsen during the stop) tried to warm up his fresh tires, Kubica was able to pull away.
The final pit stops saw the opposite happen. Kubica had to stop to take tires and fuel. As a result, he lost significant time getting his tires up to temperature.
Fuoco ended up with a lead of over six seconds over Kubica. However, the Polish racer slowly but surely reeled Fuoco in. However, the margin never got closer than three seconds.
Meanwhile, Pier Guidi was able to run Kubica down for second. The battle for second meant that Fuoco was home free to take the win.
For The Heart of Racing, the racing debut of the new Aston Martin Valkyrie didn’t go all that great. The No. 007 entry retired from the race due to electrical issues. The No. 009 suffered a brake that resulted in a spin for Roman De Angelis and a stay in the garage. Despite that and a second trip to the garage, the No. 009 managed to finish 17th in class, 23 laps down.
In LMGT3, United Autosports’ Darren Leung started from pole in his McLaren. The bronze-rated drivers in the class were mandated to drive for a minimum of 175 minutes and he managed to do that right at the beginning of the race.
It didn’t take long for Akkodis ASP Team’s Arnold Robin to get past both McLarens to take the class lead. Once out front, Robin was able to build a comfortable advantage.
An off-course excursion for Robin ultimately gave the class lead over to Sean Galael, who put the No. 95 McLaren on the class pole Thursday. Once out front, United Autosports was able to put a stake on the advantage while their immediate competition was hampered by on-track issues and penalties.
The day seemed almost perfect for the No. 95 team until they made a pit stop with a little more than three hours to go. The team was accused of an unsafe release. With 80 minutes to go, the penalty was assessed, forcing Marino Sato to serve a drive-through penalty. The team of Galael, Sato and
After the penalty was served, Team WRT’s Augusto Farfus ended up in the class lead with a substantial margin over the rest of the pack. He handed off to Timur Boguslavskiy for the final segment. Unfortunately, an alternate strategy and a lack of safety car periods in the second half of the race meant that Boguslavskiy was forced to pit for a splash of fuel with just under 15 minutes to go.
When Boguslavskiy pitted, it gave the lead over to TF Sport’s Daniel Juncadella in the No. 33 Corvette. Juncadella had United Autosports’ Gregoire Saucy right on his tail in the No. 59 McLaren for the last 30 minutes of the race.
Saucy’s best chance to take the lead away came with nine minutes to go as he had a run on the Corvette. However, De Angelis approached in his Valkyrie and forced Saucy to abort. From there, Juncadella was able to hold off Saucy to take the class victory with teammates Jonny Edgar and Ben Keating.
The margin of victory was .493 seconds over Saucy, Sebastien Baud and James Cottingham. Due to the positioning of the overall winners, Boguslavskiy, Farfus and Yasser Shahin ended up a lap down in third. Robin, Ben Barnicoat and Finn Gehrsitz were right behind in fourth, while the Ferrari of Vista AF Corse’s Francois Heriau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera were fifth.
FIA World Endurance Championship Qatar 1812km Unofficial Results
WEC teams will take the better part of two months off before their season resumes. Next up will be the 6 Hours of Imola at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Italy. That race is scheduled for April 20.
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.