The championship battles in all four classes of the FIA World Endurance Championship will be decided this weekend. Who is still in championship contention? MotorsportWeek.com takes a closer look.
Hypercar
In the top category, it is a straight fight between the two Toyotas. The #7 GR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez holds a distinct advantage.
Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez sit on 146 points following their victory last weekend and last night’s pole position, while the #8 sister car of Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley second in the standings with 130 points.
In truth, the #8 crew needs a minor miracle to still take the title. With 16 points difference, the #8 needs to outscore #7 by 17 points. A win is more or less needed, but even then, the odds are slim.
Since only three cars contest the season finale, a podium finish for the #7 car is more or less guaranteed if they make it to the flag. If they do, Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez will win the title, because the difference between first and third is 15 points – not quite enough.
Were the #7 car to retire the car, the #8 will win the title with a first or second place.
LMP2
LMP2 is one of the closest-fought titles and the decision will fall at the very end. Four cars are still in championship contention: the #31 Team WRT ORECA, the #28 JOTA ORECA, the #38 JOTA ORECA and the #22 United Autosports ORECA.
The decision will likely go down between the #31 Team WRT crew of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi and the #28 JOTA trio of Sean Gelael, Stoffel Vandoorne and Tom Blomqvist.
Team WRT leads JOTA by just five points with 38 still up for grabs. This means that Team WRT holds the control. If they finish in front of the #28 JOTA, they will win the title in only their first WEC season.
The #28 crew can still win the title with a victory, however. If neither car wins, then a second-placed finish for the #28 JOTA guarantees the title if Team WRT finishes fourth or lower. If Team WRT finishes fifth, then the #28 ORECA can win the title with a third-placed finish.
The #38 JOTA of Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix da Costa and Anthony Davidson can mathematically also still win the title, but it would need a win and both cars ahead in the standings to finish off the podium to make it happen.
The #22 United Autosports ORECA 07-Gibson will start the race from pole, meaning it goes into the race with an extra point. The Anglo-American squad need to win, otherwise their title hopes are over. Even if they win, they will need a considerable amount of bad luck from rivals, as Team WRT and the #28 JOTA would have to finish sixth and fifth respectively.
GTE Pro
The battle in GTE Pro is between the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi and the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 pairing of Kevin Estre and Neel Jani.
After Estre’s pole position on Friday night, the GTE Pro battle is a unique one: both teams head into the finale on exactly level points. Both pairings have scored 139 points.
The goal for these duos is therefore very simple: whoever finishes ahead of the other when the chequered flag falls at 22:00 pm tonight will be crowned world champions.
GTE Am
GTE Am has just two title candidates remaining after a long and gruelling campaign, and it’s something of a repeat from last year.
The #83 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera leads the standings with 112 points from the last five races. Perrodo and Nielsen coincidentally won the title here in 2020, defeating TF Sport.
That same team just so happens to be the only other team in the class still with a shot at the championship, as the #33 Aston Martin Vantage AMR of Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira and Felipe Fraga holds second place with 90,5 points.
With a gap of 21,5 points between the two cars, winning the title will be a tall order for TF Sport. Winning the race would be their best shot at the championship, but even then, it’s mostly outside of their control.
For Perrodo, Nielsen and Rovera, a fourth-placed finish will be enough to win the title, as the 18 points earned would put them on 130 – just slightly more than the maximum tally of 128,5 that TF Sport can achieve with a win.
Were the Ferrari to finish on the podium, however, it would clinch the title for the Italian squad. For TF Sport to win the title, they would have to win the race and hope that their rivals finish fifth or lower. In case of a second-place finish, that would become ninth.
