Saturday, November 30, 2013

Toyota Wins At Bahrain

The #8 Toyota TS030 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Stéphane Sarrazin won the 2013 FIA World Endurance Championship season finale at the Bahrain International Circuit, the #8's first win of the season. After their teammate #7 Toyota and LMP1 championship winning #2 Audi of Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Loïc Duval had mechanical issues, it was smooth sailing for the #8, winning by over a minute ahead of the #1 Audi of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer.

The #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca-Nissan of Mike Conway, John Martin and Romain Rusinov won the LMP2 class for the fourth time in 2013 and finished third overall at Bahrain. The #24 OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan of Oliver Pla, Alex Brundle and David Heinemeier Hansson finished second in the class and second in the LMP2 championship to their teammates Bertrand Baguette, Martin Plowman and Ricardo González who finished fourth in class at Bahrain. The #41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan of Björn Wirdheim, Wolfgang Reip and Jon Lancester finished third in class.

By winning the race Gianmaria Bruni won the World Cup For GT Drivers by ten points over his Ferrari teammate Giancarlo Fisichella and gave Ferrari the GT Manufactures' title over Aston Martin. Bruni came from behind to beat the Aston Martin pair of Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner for the title after their Vantage V8 retired. Bruni won the race pair with Finn Toni Vilander. The Porsche of Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Pilet finished second in class with Fisichella and Kamui Kobayashi rounding out the GTE Pro podium.

In GTE Am, the All-Danish Aston Martin of Christoffer Nygaard, Kristian Poulsen and Nicki Thiim won the final race of what has been a roller coaster season for the team. The team won the first race of the season at Silverstone with Allan Simonsen being the third Dane along side Nygaard and Poulsen. Simonsen would succumb to injuries suffered in an early accident during the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team would recover and win at the rain-shortened Fuji event with Bruno Senna as third driver. This is Nicki Thiim's first win in WEC and ends what has been a very successful season for the Dane as he won the 2013 Porsche Supercup Championships.

The Ferrari 458 Italia of the American 8 Star Motorsports finished second in class with Rui Águas, Enzo Potolicchio and Davide Rigon. By finishing second, 8 Star Motorsports wins the GTE Am Team championship over Aston Martin. It is the second consecutive season with an American team taking a title. Starworks Motorsport won the LMP2 championship in the 2012 season. The #61 Ferrari of François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Matt Griffin finished third.

Despite winning the team title, the 8 Star Motorsport drivers fell one point short of the GTE Am drivers championships. The Aston Martin pair of Jamie Campbell-Walter and Stuart Hall won the title by one point over the Venezuelan Potolicchio and Portuguese Águas. They finished fifth at Bahrain.

The 2013 season ends as does the month of November. One month to go in this calendar year with the first event of the 2014 WEC season taking place April 20, Easter Sunday at Silverstone.