[WEC Race] 2021 The Bahrain races

[Matador]

Didn't see a thread, so started one.


Kobayashi Topped FP2 and FP3


Qualifying starts at 4:30 local time

[Pandamasque]

Watching qualifying right now. Anyone else getting seizure-inducing frame stutters from the official WEC stream? Looks like some frames are displayed in the wrong order, so you get "flashbacks" of the previous shot every now and then.

[WyldStallion]

AF Corse Ferrari way back in GTE terms. Maybe they should park their cars at some point to make a statement .

[J Jay]

A race did indeed happen. #7, #31, #92, #33 provisional winners.

LMP2 looks tight going into next week's finale, and GTE-Pro has closed up a bit.

[Simmi]

Title battles closing up quite nicely. Managed to watch this back in two sittings. Thankfully I managed to find the world feed on ES Player.

8 hours next weekend, a lot in the dark, is quite a tough sell but will try and tune in. It really just feels like the big gap after Le Mans sucked the life and momentum out of the championship.

[J Jay]

Originally Posted by Simmi

It really just feels like the big gap after Le Mans sucked the life and momentum out of the championship.

I think it's more than that, although Bahrain being the venue for the penultimate and ultimate rounds hasn't helped.

While we're - rightly - excited for Hypercar/LMDh, the enticing prospect of so many manufacturer, factory-backed or otherwise high-quality entrants competing for overall honours has left most of this year's races feeling a little hollow.

While interest in the 2022 season will probably wane after Le Mans again, that'll be equally to do with attention being turned on the upcoming season.

[Mike E]

A lot of the interest next year will be around Peugeot hopefully turning up early and the LMP2 kindergarten for Penske/WRT/AF Corse/etc ahead of promotion to hypercar in '23.

[gert]

Originally Posted by Simmi

It really just feels like the big gap after Le Mans sucked the life and momentum out of the championship.

Paywalling every single bit of it doesn't exactly help either.

[GT6]

I watched the race both live for the first hours and then the last 2 hours recorded, had to go out, and enjoyed it but the interest in this race did seem to be be very muted both on here and on the other forums. I hope that 2022 generates more interest but unless there is an improvement in the quality of the field in the top class in both prototypes and GT's i can not see it happening. Can the ACO get more diverse entries in the WEC for next year? i do hope so

[Adam43]

I was busy all weekend, and the time difference was not working for me, so not ideal to see. Had no chance to catch up either. There were other things that needed catching up on and the length of the race didn’t help. The best thing about endurance racing is also the most inconvenient

Well done to Toyota.

Any key take aways from those that watched.

Porsche just seemed on top? No tire wear issues?

How did it turn out with relatively lap times between the Toyotas and the Alpines through a stint. And what about the stint length? Was the difference a bit of both?

Big fight in LMP2?

[Mike E]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Porsche just seemed on top? No tire wear issues?

Ferrari were handed a late BoP adjustment, outside of the normal automated system. I think it was a fuel volume decrease and a boost adjustment, but could be wrong. They weren't happy about it and rightly so, you would think.
Whether their pace was genuine or they want a better break for the points and a half race next weekend, I guess we will have to wait and see.

[Adam43]

Thanks. I didn’t see what the BoP adjustments were , or even there had been any.

I wonder if they tweaked hypercar? I’ll look in a bit…

You make a good point. An adjustment between two races on the same track? That would be fun.

[Mike E]

We've had adjustments between qualifying and the race at Le Mans so nothing is impossible!

[Simmi]

I think it was Neel Jani who said during the race broadcast that it was hard to really carry too much over from this race to the 8 Hours due to the different time of day and the subsequent track temps. Tyre deg should be much better.

[Adam43]

Good point, I’m sure they’ll be some differences there. A
Though I suspect there is a decent amount they can apply

[Adam43]

I haven't downloaded this to look at properly, rather I've just eyeballed it. It looked like the Toyotas could do 31 lap stints (with the odd 32) and the Alpine was 28 (odd 29). Does this seem about right?

Seems Toyota's pick-up problem has been solved.

Were there many yellows or other reasons they could have stretched a stint during the race?

Also, the Alpine had a few very short stints. What were the reasons for this?

[seanyb505]

They be racing again...

I missed the first 45 minutes, but alpine already having issues.

[Pandamasque]

Originally Posted by Adam43

Seems Toyota's pick-up problem has been solved.

Mind-blowing interview with Vasselon on this week's MWM on this subject.

[bentley speed 8]

What the heck GTE Pro. Not the way to win a championship for sure

Edit: seems there is not even a thread for the 8 hour race

[Racing Harz]

What a fu**ing joke from AF Corse...

[seanyb505]

How much do you expect them to slow to give a position back? Race stewards haven't made any announcements yet, which looks like so far the win was legitimate.

Not sure how I feel, but pitting instead of taking the position shouldn't add additional penalty to your competitor.

[Pandamasque]

Both teams were on the same exact strategy with 1 lap difference. All #51 needed to do is lift for 2 seconds after their pitstop. And then Pier Guidi had like 5 laps to overtake again and enjoy a legitimate win.

I expect #51 to be slammed with an equivalent of a stop-go, a 30 second penalty, if not 30 s. + another 30 for disobeying race control! Their stupidity can lose them a podium.
The stewards have done a great job to make their decision on the incident in under 2 minutes allowing the race to still play out naturally and fairly. But if the decision ends up being optional, the whole organisation will look like a bit of a joke.

[bobec]

Did they both need to pit regardless of the incident?

[Racing Harz]

Originally Posted by bobec

Did they both need to pit regardless of the incident?

They needed a splash and dash to finish the race.

[GT6]

Well that was an eventful race but i wonder how long it will be before we know the GT pro result and therefore who won the championship. felt sorry for TF in the gt am class it rather spoilt what could have been a good battle for the am class win and championship.