It feels like saying this is getting a bit repetitive at this point, but even so: what a fantastic race to close the FIA World Endurance Championship at Bahrain.
Bahrain’s become known in WEC circles for producing sub par races at times, but 2024’s edition of the 8 hour race was excellent, with action almost all the time in one form or another. You wouldn’t know it though, considering the #8 Toyota started on pole and won the race. It was anything but a simple lights-to-flag victory, though.
The standout performance was, undoubtedly, Sebastien Buemi’s, Brendon Hartley’s, and Ryo Hirakawa;’s comeback and victory after sinking as low as 10th during the race.
While the trio were fast all race, it was only in the final hour, after the second and last safety car, that they unleashed the pace that had been bubbling under the surface for pretty much the whole race.
Day time
The first half of the race, from 14:00 local time to 18:00 local time, was mostly conducted in day time. The sun set at 16:54, so the final hour of the first half was conducted as the track cooled, with no direct sunlight on it.
Buemi led from pole and looked comfortable. It is, after all, where these cars work best, in clear air and not following other cars. He didn’t try to pull a gap, though — for good reason.
“To be honest, I was managing the pace at the beginning,” said the Swiss driver.
“I didn't want to pull out a gap because obviously if we have a safety car, you've just damaged the tires for nothing.”
So, while the gap got up to around xx in the first 20 minutes, it’s clear he could have gone much faster.
Disaster then struck, with the contact between Buemi and Koizumi in the #82 TF Sport Corvette.
Buemi dropped to seventh and was stuck behind the BMW of Dries Vanthoor for 20 laps. His average pace dropped off massively here — whereas in the laps before the spin he was averaging 1:52.5s, after the spin, running in traffic, his lap times went up by three seconds on average.
Ferrari’s Antonio Giovinazzi, in the #51 car, inherited the lead when Buemi spun. By the end of the stint, the Italian had a lead of around 5 seconds to Will Stevens, in the #12 JOTA Porsche behind.
Buemi, meanwhile, had been stuck behind Vanthoor since his spin, putting more strain on his medium tyres as a result. During the pitstop cycle he did jump from seventh to fourth, passing Julien Andlauer in the #99 Proton Porsche, who after a spell up front was now falling back through the field, and the BMW of D. Vanthoor.
This put the Swiss driver back behind his teammate Conway, plus Stevens, who’d used an undercut plus faster work in the pits from the JOTA crew, to take the lead off Giovinazzi.
Buemi was now running in mostly clear air, roughly seven seconds away from Conway, with the Briton having a similar gap to Giovinazzi in front of him.
Buemi’s pace, despite being on used mediums, was good during the first half of the second hour. With every lap, though, the mediums lost more grip, and soon Buemi, who’d been catching Conway, fell back into the grip of Matt Campbell in the #5 Porsche.
Campbell spent five laps behind Buemi and then passed him for fourth. The data shows Campbell was, on average, three tenths a lap quicker than Buemi at this stage in the race.
Buemi pitted early in his stint as the mediums that he'd started the race on where now done, with no life left in them. He'd also spun on them which may have caused more damage.
Campbell pitted a few laps later and, with Michael Christensen at the wheel, sat second behind Giovinazzi, who'd passed Will Stevens in the #12 car during the stint, to take the lead of the race.
Meanwhile, after the stops had shaken out, Brendon Hartley, who'd replaced Buemi at the wheel of the #8 Toyota, was fourth, behind Norman Nato, who'd replaced Stevens in the #12 JOTA.
For the rest of the first half of the race, Hartley remained in touch with the leaders, but steadily falling back. By the time he pitted at the 3h57m mark, he was 32 seconds off the leader, James Calado in the #51 Ferrari.
Night time
Ryo Hirakawa was in the car next. Once the next round of stops had shaken out, he sat seventh, 30 seconds off the lead, behind Oliver Rasmussen, who'd replaced Button in the #38 JOTA.
The race was now being run under the cover of darkness, albeit with Bahrain's floodlights lighting up the entire circuit. With direct sunlight no longer heating up the track surface, the tyres would last longer and drivers could push more. Game on.
The first half was exceedingly clean, with just one brief full course yellow to recover some debris. However, the second half of the race was neutralised twice.
Hirakawa's teammate Nyck de Vries led the race at that point in the #7 Toyota. However, an earlier power issue with the car returned during de Vries' stint, enabling Alessandro Pier Guidi, in the #51 Ferrari, to catch and pass. Others soon followed, including Callum Ilott in the #12 JOTA and Fred Makowiecki in the #5 Porsche.
Meanwhile, Hirakawa was languishing in seventh, 35 seconds off Pier Guidi in the lead, while Toyota's hopes of winning with the #7 car went up in smoke.
He pitted on schedule on lap 153, once again slightly early and dropped to 14th temporarily before other cars ahead pitted.
Matthieu Vaxiviere, in the #35 Alpine, was last to pit, coming in around 15 minutes after Hirakawa had. This meant the Japanese driver was fifth, in front of de Vries who was now facing big power losses as the power issue, later revealed to be a misfire, seemingly worsened.
At this point, 15 minutes into the hour, Pier Guidi's lead over Ilott stood at seven seconds. However, just over 10 minutes later, the game changed as the virtual safety car was deployed to recover the #88 Proton-run Ford Mustang GT3, with Gianmarco Levorato at the wheel. The car had caught fire and Levorato had stopped the car on the side of the track.
As per the rules, the safety car came out when the virtual safety car procedure ended. This bunched the field up, eliminating the just-over-30 second deficit Hirakawa had to Pier Guidi.
When the safety car returned to the pit lane just over 20 minutes later, that gap had been slashed to six seconds. Due to pit stop shenanigans, Hirakawa now sat fourth. The lead had also changed, with Ilott leading, Pier Guidi second, and Makowiecki third. Behind Hirakawa were the two Vanthoor brothers, BMW's Dries ahead of Porsche's Laurens.
However, Hirakawa's pace at this stage was not on the same page as the other drivers around him. In fairly short order, he got passed by both Vanthoor brothers plus Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari. Hirakawa pitted on lap 181 to be replaced by Buemi for the final hour and a half of the race.
Hirakawa's lack of pace didn't massively matter, though, since the safety car was called shortly after for another incident, this time the #94 Peugeot of Paul di Resta breaking down on the back straight. At the same time, the other Proton-run Ford Mustang stopped on track, with an issue that looked suspiciously similar to the earlier issue for the other car.
So, with Buemi now in the car, he sat 10th, with the race restarting with an hour and a half to go.
To put it mildly, Buemi's pace was electric in this final stage of the race, over a second quicker than any other Hypercar in the last hour.
He very quickly worked his way past Stevens, Milesi, Button, Kubica, Jensen, and D. Vanthoor, to put himself fourth with an hour to go. He now had Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 Porsche — who looked set to take the drivers world championship along with Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre — ahead in third, roughly 10 seconds up the road.
Matt Campbell in the sister #5 car was another 7.5 seconds ahead, with Giovinazzi leading with a four second gap. This meant Buemi had to make up 21 seconds in just one hour if we wanted to win.
However, in the end, he didn't actually need to. Fast work in the pits from Toyota enabled him to jump the field, past Giovinazzi, who dropped way down to fifth, from the lead.
The battle was now between Campbell and Buemi. It didn't take long, though, for Buemi to pass Campbell. In fact, Campbell only led a single lap before the Toyota driver foyund a way pass, forcing an overtake on a defensive Campbell at turn 8, pushing the Australian off track onto the dirty, sandy, dusty run off area.
Campbell, on older tyres than Buemi, who'd had new tyres fitted to his Toyota for the final stint, had no answer to the Toyota from here on in. Buemi would eventually finish 27.539 seconds ahead.
So, the safety car periods, in particular the first one, saved Toyota's hopes of winning. That said, considering Buemi had an average pace in the final hour nine tenths faster than anyone else... it stands to reason that the gap pre-safety car could have been closed down, had the race not been neutralised (twice).
There are some other interesting things nestled within the data, so we'll be back with a few more bits later this week.
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