The 2024 World Endurance Championship got underway at Qatar in what was a dramatic opening race to kick off the new season.
The No. 6 Porsche Penske 963 Hypercar, driven by Andre Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre took the chequered flag 33.297s ahead of No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA featuring the driver line-up of Callum Ilott, Will Stevens and Norman Nato.
The lead was reduced significantly in the last 15 minutes after Estre in the No. 6 made contact with an LMGT3 car which damaged the car's side panel forcing the team to make urgent repairs to the car.
The No.5 Porsche Penske rounded off the podium which pleased the Stuttgart based manufacturer, as drivers Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki overcame car vibration issues earlier in the race.
Despite this Porsche triple podium in the end, No. 93 Peugeot TotalEnergies so narrowly and brutally missed out on 2nd place after a late issue saw the car stop as it entered the last lap. The car got going again but saw them finish back down to 7th, only for the team and car getting DSQ'ed for breaching a technical regulation.
Outside of the podium spots, the following 4 places were sealed by 4 different manufactures - which proved the competitive nature of WEC between lots of entrants for this new era of endurance racing.
Despite an early race impact which meant the car had front-left damage, the No.2 Cadillac Racing team recovered extremely well to finish just outside the podium, with Alex Lynn, Earl Bamber and Sebastian Bourdais receiving all the praise for their efforts.
The No.83 AF Corse Ferrari came behind in what was their debut in WEC to finish in 5th place, with reigning World Champions the No.7 Toyota following suit in 6th.
Debutants Alpine No.35 came in 8th, ahead of the other Toyota car (No.8) while Proton Competition sealed the final points.
Porsche's LMGT3 Success
The Manthey Pure Rxcing team gave Porsche the win in both classes in the new for 2024 LMGT3 class.
Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Aliaksandr Malykhin led the majority of the race comfortably in the No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3, winning by being only 4.8s clear of the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Ian James, Alex Riberas and Daniel Mancinelli.
The Aston Martin was able to rise from fifth on the grid to take the lead in the sixth hour of the race, but Riberas suffered a spin soon after to hand the top spot back to the No. 92 Porsche.
The final spot on the podium went to the other Aston Martin entered by D’station following a fantastic final stint from factory driver Marco Sorensenin the last hour of the race to round off the podium in style.
9x MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi finished fourth on his WEC debut in the No.46 WRT BMW he shared with Maxime Martin and Amhad Al Marthy, with four stints made to help the team finish as high as possible.
The No. 81 TF Sport Corvette team crew involving van Rompuy, Charlie Eastwood and Rui Andrade retired the car around half way through the race on lap 177 due to electrical issues.
The #78 ASP Lexus RC GT3 of Arnold Robin, Kelvin van der Linde and Timur Boguslavskiy was the only other car not to make to the finish in the LMGT3 class.