AF Corse’s Robert Shwartzman took the overall lead with 41 minutes to go when Toyota GAZOO Racing’s Kamui Kobayashi was forced to serve a drive-through penalty for ignoring a yellow flag. From there, he was able to hold off the charging Toyota driver to win the FIA World Endurance Championship Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of the Americas Sunday (Sept. 1) with teammates Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye. It is the first victory for the privateer Ferrari squad.
“There was a lot of pressure in the [final] laps, to be honest, since my tires were going away completely,” Shwartzman said after the race. “So, I was sliding all over the place and I knew that any mistake would cost us [everything]. At the end of the day, I’m very happy that I was able to keep [the car] on the track.”
The margin of victory was 1.78 seconds over Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries. Ferrari AF Corse’s Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen were third in their factory Ferrari 499P, then Chip Ganassi Racing’s Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook in the sole Cadillac in the field. Signatech Alpine’s Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi were fifth.
Ferrari AF Corse’s Antonio Giovinazzi started from pole and led early over Kubica. Further back, Chip Ganassi Racing’s Earl Bamber and Habsburg came together under braking for turn 12, resulting in Habsburg ending up in the runoff.
The stewards didn’t like this very much. They determined that Habsburg initiated the contact and thus, gave him a drive-through penalty.
Giovinazzi and Kubica ran away from the field early to settle the race themselves. However, they were both using energy more quickly. That led to a position switch 35 minutes into the race.
After the first round of stops, Kubica kept himself ahead until Giovinazzi spun early in the second hour began to stretch out the lead to nearly five seconds. For Giovinazzi, trouble struck near the end of the second hour. The car suffered a gearbox issue a couple of corners from the pits.
Giovinazzi was able to coast the car onto pit road, but stalled before he could get to his pit stall. Once the crew ran down and pushed the car to their assigned stall, the call was made to put the No. 51 Ferrari 499P in the garage. The team ended up being done for the day.
As the race continued on, the main rival to the No. 83 Ferrari ended up being Toyota’s No. 7. Conway started in ninth and slowly made his way…
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