It was Porsche day in Qatar for the Qatar 1812km as the manufacturer secured 4 podium finishes between the Hypercar and LMGT3 classes. Porsche Penske Motorsport led the effort in Hypercar with their No. 6 car taking the checkered flag and securing the first win of the season. Hertz Team JOTA finished in a hard fought second place as the No. 12 Porsche 963 has hovered in the top 5 all weekend. The team will be pleased with the result despites falling behind the No. 6 car by 32 seconds. The sister Porsche Penske car who led practice and qualifying earlier in the weekend finished P3 to give Porsche Penske a double podium in the season opener and the lead in the team standings.
Heartbreak for Peugeot, Lamborghini Clearly behind
As the clock ticked to the closing minutes it seems all but guaranteed that the No. 93 Peugeot would finish on the podium until disaster struck. The car ran out of fuel with just 2 laps to go. The team fell to P7 due to the failure. The sister car finished P17 in class.
Lamborghini Iron Lynx debuted the new SC63 Hypercar finishing P15 on the weekend. Given that the team has no race data on the car. One of the most important goals of the weekend was to finish the race. While they finished 5 laps behind the lead lap this weekend served as a data gathering opportunity to help them fine tune the car for the future rounds in WEC and IMSA. The SC63 will make its IMSA debut at the 12 hours of Sebring later this month.
Manthey PureRxcing Secures LMGT3 Win
Manthey PureRxcing raced its Porsche 911 GT3R LMGT3 to victory completing 299 laps and winning the LMGT3 class. There was only one other car on the in class lead lap; the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3. In third the No. 777 D’Station Racing Aston Martin finished 1 lap behind the leaders. MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi secured a top 5 finish in his WEC racing debut. The feat was an incredible achievement as Rossi started his quest to dominate in the car racing world as he has in the motorcycle racing world for years.
#91 MANTHEY EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R of Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring and Richard Lietz JEP/Motorsport ImagesFull Results From the Qatar 1812km