Laurens Vanthoor of the #6 Porsche Penske 963 Hypercar held the overall lead after seven thrilling hours completed of the Qatar 1812 km, the opening round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season.
Porsche have continued their form into the race with encouraging and consistently strong stints by their works and JOTA customer cars, although a surprising contender for the lead has been the #93 Peugeot 9X8.
Since the halfway point, the sibling #94 Peugeot has faced misfortune and have not been able to make up ground since di Resta’s spin at Turn 1, Lap 1.
Into the sixth hour of the race, the #94 continued its time in the garage after the team conducted a battery change in an impressive 30 minutes, although costing them significantly in the overall order.
Jean-Eric Vergne was at the wheel of the leading #93, and was being chased down by #5 Porsche Penske driver Frederic Makowiecki and the #12 JOTA Porsche 963 of Callum Ilott.
Further down the field in the fight for P8, Cadillac Racing’s Earl Bamber was forced to defend from the #50 Ferrari 499P Antonio Fuoco who was on significantly older tyres.
Fuoco executed a move on the inside of T1 before Miguel Molina took over from behind the wheel.
The lead gap at the front narrowed down to 20 seconds as Vergne continued his pursuit on Andre Lotterer who was driving the #6 Porsche Penske, whilst Vergne simultaneously gained time ahead of Ilott.
The #6 pitted from the lead and Laurens Vanthoor took over driving duties with a full, fresh set of tyres as it was his turn to maintain the lead gap.
As the sun set and the track conditions became cooler, it was also noticeably rubbered-down with the formation of ‘marbles’ at the edges of fast, sweeping bends which showed the strain and effort endured by the tyres.
The first retirement of the race was officially confirmed for the #11 Isotta Fraschini debuting Hypercar team, after they encountered an issue which resided them into the garage. They completed 157 out of a predicted 335 total laps in their debut race.
Into the seventh hour, the gap narrowed dramatically at the front with Muller having turned up the pace on Vanthoor, and sat 10 seconds behind him.
Whilst this was maintained for an impressively long time, the gap enlarged again to above 40 seconds by the end of the hour.
Vanthoor held the lead over Muller’s #93 Peugeot, as the pair were trailed by Norman Nato in the #12 JOTA Porsche.
Fourth position was claimed by Robert Kubica in the highest-placed Ferrari 499P, the #83 privateer Hypercar, followed by the #38 JOTA of Jenson Button.
In LMGT3, Valentino Rossi of the #46 WRT BMW M4 completed his first WEC outing, situating his car in fourth place when he swapped seats with teammate Maxime Martin.
A thrilling battle for the lead returned with the #92 Manthey Porsche’s seemingly dominant form from earlier on being negated by the competitors behind, who closed the gap down steadily but surely.
Race leader Alex Riberas in the #27 had a moment where he spun around. Although he continued his momentum, Klaus Bachler in the #92 brought himself back onto the rear of the Heart of Racing Aston Martin AMR Vantage.
Meanwhile the second, confirmed retirement of the race was the #81 TF Sport Corvette Z06.
Rossi got back into the #46 running in fine form in order to complete his minimum stint time as he was looking to take his first ever WEC podium on-debut.
In the class lead was the #92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche with Joel Sturm at the wheel, followed by Daniel Mancinelli, who got in the #27 after Riberas pitted at the end of his stint, which was fortunately soon after his spin.
Rossi was in third place behind the wheel of the #46 WRT BMW M4, followed by Marco Sorensen’s #777 D’station Racing Aston Martin, and the #31 WRT BMW M4 Sean Gelael.
