6H Spa: Success all along the line 🎥
THREE SWISS WINNERS Toyota won the season opener of the World Endurance Championship at Spa with Sébastien Buemi in one of the two new hypercars. Fabio Scherer and Neel Jani also won their classes at the first attempt. Six hours in six minutes - the highlights of the 2021 WEC season opener. In sunny conditions and temperatures around 10 degrees, the two [...]
Six hours in six minutes - the highlights of the 2021 World Cup opener.
In sunny conditions and temperatures around 10 degrees, the two Toyota teams battled it out for practically six hours with their only rival in the new premier class of the World Endurance Championship for overall victory. In the end, Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley prevailed over the Alpine A480 in their new Toyota GR010 Hybrid despite a 30-second time penalty for a minor offense during a pit stop.
Lucky
The second Toyota trio would also have been in contention for victory in Belgium had the car not even had to be freed from the gravel bed after a colossal braking incident.
At the finish line after six hours, the Swiss, the Japanese and the New Zealander were 77 seconds ahead of Alpine with Nicolas Lapierre of Franco-Switzerland, Maxime Vaxivière of France and André Negrão of Brazil.
Perfect LMP2 debut for Fabio Scherer
The success of the LMP2 World Champion team with Fabio Scherer was undisputed. The Lucerne native and his two experienced teammates Phil Hanson and Filipe Albuquerque led the Oreca-Gibson from United Autosport from start to finish. Only at the refueling stops did they briefly let their strongest opponent take the lead for a lap each time.
At the start, the Portuguese even moved into second place overall. However, the superior LMP2 winners had no chance against the three stronger sports prototypes from the new LM hypercar class at the distance.
Porsche lap record
With a GT record lap in qualifying, Kevin Estre put the factory team's Porsche 911 RSR shared with Neel Jani on pole position in the LMGTE Pro class. The Frenchman consistently fought off the attacks of the two Ferraris from AF Corse in the opening laps and launched a run to the front.
Estre exploited the Porsche's strengths to the maximum and built up a lead of around 15 seconds in his first two stints. Even an early pit stop due to a puncture could not set back car number #92.
Neel Jani's first GT win
The Swiss overall winner of the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans (on a Porsche 919 Hybrid) then put in a strong performance in his first race in the WEC's GTE-Pro class and handed the car back to Estre in first place. The latter then brought the success to the finish line unchallenged with an advantage of around 35 seconds.
Neel Jani: "It couldn't have gone better. When Kévin had to come into the pits earlier than planned because of the puncture, we were a bit worried at first because I had to save some fuel in my stints for tactical reasons. But a caution phase helped us at the right moment. So this was no longer an issue. Things went well for us. A win on the first start in the GT class is mega, of course."
In the LM-GTE Am class, Rahel Frey and her partners Katherine Legge and Manuela Gostner in the Iron Lynx Ferrari did not finish higher than eighth.
Overall classification 6 Hours of Spa 2021
