P1racenews AI automatic summary:
The #7 Toyota crew of Nyck de Vries, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi have won the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 8 Hours of Bahrain, the season-closing race. This ensures that Toyota don’t have their first winless WEC season since 2015. It also continues Toyota’s run of victories at Bahrain, with de Vries crossing the line […]
Nyck de Vries, Mike Conway, and Kamui Kobayashi from the #7 Toyota crew emerged victorious in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 8 Hours of Bahrain, securing Toyota’s eighth consecutive win at the Bahrain race and preventing their first winless WEC season since 2015.
Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa, and Brendon Hartley finished second in the sister #8 Toyota, with Ferrari’s Nicklas Nielsen claiming third place. Ferrari clinched the manufacturers’ world title, while Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi won the drivers’ world championship for Ferrari in the Hypercar era.
Despite initially contending for the championship victory, Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye, and Phil Hanson settled for second place in the standings in the #51 Ferrari, with the #50 team finishing third, behind their privately-run satellite entry, the #83 AF Corse Ferrari.
The race saw Toyota control proceedings from the start, with Conway starting from pole position and Hartley leading for a brief period before falling back due to tyre degradation. A strategic move during the first round of pit stops ensured fresh rubber for the #8 Toyota towards the end, granting them a competitive edge on the high tyre wear Bahrain circuit.
The mid-race virtual safety car period, triggered by a crash involving Thomas Flohr in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, injected drama into the competition and highlighted Jenson Button’s entanglement in the incident during his final professional race, where he inadvertently collided with Flohr in a chaotic sequence of events.
