Kubica, Shwartzman and Ye grab first win ahead of charging Toyota at COTA · RaceFans

The customer Ferrari squad of Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Ye Yifei resisted pressure from Toyota to score their first win in the World Endurance Championship at the Circuit of the Americas.

The number 83 Ferrari hit the front of the field towards the end of the first hour of of the six-hour Lone Star Le Mans race. Robert Kubica, who started second, passed Antonio Giovinazzi, having shared the front row of the grid with the works number 51 Ferrari 599P.

Giovinazzi was doomed to retire from the race after spinning to a halt when he encountered Stoffel Vandoorne in the number 94 Peugeot at turn 12. Although he was able to limp his Ferrari back to the pits, it never returned to the track after it was pushed into the garage with an apparent power unit problem. The Peugeot retired at the four-hour mark when Paul di Resta pulled over at turn 11.

Interlagos winners Toyota went into the sixth round at a disadvantage following the latest adjustments to WEC’s Balance of Performance, then their drivers blunted their challenge with a series of errors. Sebastien Buemi incurred a 30 second stop-and-go penalty, plus two penalty points on his licence, for an outrageous block on Kevin Estre, causing contact with the number six Porsche and forcing it off-track at the exit of turn 11, and sustaining a left-rear puncture on his own car as he did so.

The number seven Porsche lost the lead of the race after Kamui Kobayashi had to serve a drive-through penalty for failing to slow sufficiently for yellow flags. He gave chase to Shwartzman’s car in the final laps but fell 1.7 seconds short of catching him after running wide at turn 18 and again at turn one.

The works number 50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen took the final place on the podium, 24 seconds in arrears. Four other cars finished on the lead lap, led by the number two Cadillac shared by Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn.

Alpine scored their best result of the season so far as Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinard Habsburg and Charles Milesi took the number 35 machine to fifth place. They were followed by two Penske-run Porsches: Estre and team mates Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor saw their championship lead trimmed to 12 points after coming sixth, their lowest finish so far this year.

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Race result