Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre and Andre Negrao extended their lead in the drivers’ championship with a surprise victory in a thrilling race that was decided in controversial circumstances as the leading two cars came to blows with just over an hour to run.
Having taken over driving duties aboard the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson after the sixth round of pitstops, Vaxiviere quickly dispatched the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa and was then able to catch the race leading #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi in no time.
The French driver ran alongside Kobayashi after getting a great exit out of the Parabolica, but the Toyota driver appeared to move across to the right as they approached the first chicane, making contact and sustaining heavy damage and a puncture to the rear-right tyre of his GR010.
Kobayashi was forced to limp back to the pits for repairs as the full-course yellow was deployed to remove debris from the track, leaving Vaxiviere in the lead of the race.
Hirakawa was right on the tail of Vaxiviere when the action resumed after a relatively brief Full Course Yellow, but the Alpine driver was able to pull away to score Alpine’s second WEC win of the year following its first victory in the season opener at Sebring.
Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi were classified 2.7 seconds behind in second, successfully recovering from an early electrical issue that affected the braking of the car until a full power cycle reset was performed in the pits.
Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez were able to bag solid points in third, two laps down on the winning Alpine, despite Kobayashi picking up a 90-second stop/go penalty for his incident with Vaxiviere.
The #7 Toyota could claim the final spot on the podium as the remaining three entrants in the Hypercar class all hit trouble, including the pole-sitting Glickenhaus.
The American manufacturer looked on course for a maiden WEC win in the first part of the race following some impressive early stints from Romain Dumas and Pipo Derani, before it all went away from the squad in the third hour.
A drive-through penalty and a subsequent safety car appearance eradicated the near-50 second advantage the #708 crew had built, leaving Olivier Pla at the bottom of the Hypercar pack after he took over driving duties.
Pla had little time to regain lost position as a turbo failure left him with a smoking car, which he brought into the pits for a painful retirement.
- Watch all WEC races live on Motorsport.tv (geo-restrictions may apply).
Peugeot was never in a position to trouble its Hypercar rivals on its return to the top echelon of sportscar racing, suffering from both a lack of speed and reliability issues on both cars.
The #93 9X8 of Jean-Eric Vergne, Paul di Resta and Mikkel Jensen couldn’t even complete 30 minutes of running before it crawled to a halt and continued to experience issues after returning to action.
The sister #94 car ran trouble-free for the first half of the race but also stopped on track late on, with Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter eventually finishing 25 laps down on the winning Alpine in fourth place (and 33rd overall).
WRT victorious in LMP2
RealTeam by WRT beat JOTA to emerge victorious in an LMP2 battle that was blown wide open by a safety car in the third hour.
Ferdinand Habsburg had moved the #31 Oreca 07-Gibson into the lead at the beginning of the hour after passing the #22 United Autosports of Filipe Albuquerque at Turn 1.
The second of the two WRT cars dropped down the order after the safety car but was able to circle its way back near the front by the final hour, behind the #38 JOTA Oreca that had charged up the order after starting at the back of the field due to an unsafe pit release in qualifying.
The two cars headed into the pits at the same time for their final stops, with quicker pitwork by the JOTA crew allowing Habsburg to jump Will Stevens and claim victory for himself, Norman Nato and Rui Andrade.
Stevens, Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez eventually finished 12s behind in the #38 JOTA entry, while Vector Sport clinched its first podium with Nico Muller, Ryan Cullen and Sebastien Bourdais finishing third in the #10 Oreca.
Several leading LMP2 runners fell out of contention over the course of the race, including the #22 United Autosports car which was hit by mechanical problems, and the second JOTA car that crashed out late in the race with Jonathan Aberdein at the wheel.
Corvette denies Ferrari home win
Corvette took a surprise victory in GTE Pro after Antonio Fuoco was forced to bring the leading #52 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo to the pits with just 2m30s to go for a splash-and-dash.
It marked Corvette’s first victory in the WEC since the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours and its first in a regular six-hour race.
Fuoco and Miguel Molina had inherited the lead from the pole-sitting sister #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, which was hit with a five-second stop/go penalty in the penultimate hour for failing to transfer data from their car after a pitstop.
Ferrari was seemingly on its way to a victory on its home turf having led the race from the beginning until Fuoco's last-minute stop, allowing Corvette pair Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy to steal an unlikely win in the #64 C8.R.
Calado and Pier Guidi eventually secured the final spot on the rostrum in third after Pier Guidi emerged on top in a long and arduous battle with the #92 Porsche of Kevin Estre, which involved multiple instances of the pair making contact.
A drive-through penalty for the #92 car dropped Estre and Michael Christensen to fourth, ahead of the sister #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Gianmaria Bruni and Frederic Makowiecki.
Harry Tincknell, Sebastian Priaulx and Christian Ried took the top spot in the GTE Am in the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche.
The trio were able to deny the all-female #85 Iron Dames Ferrari crew of Michael Gattting, Rahel Frey and Sarah Bovy by timing a late pitstop under a FCY.
Third place in GTE Am went to the #45 Team Project 1 Porsche of Matteo Cairoli, Mikkel Pedersen and Nicolas Leutwiler.
The only safety car of the race was caused by Henrique Chaves when his TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage was thrown up in the air after he spun and ran sideways over the sausage kerbs at the second chicane.
Chaves’ car landed upside down after losing one of its doors and slid on its roof over the far side of the track, before coming to a rest against the barriers after a full roll-over.
The Portuguese driver was uninjured and was able to escape the car unaided.
