2023 FIA WEC / FocusPackMedia - Harry Parvin

#8 Toyota takes the win in Portimao

The #8 Toyota took the win in Portimão which was a lot less straightforward race for the Japanese Manufacture.

While the #8 car was on top of the world being a lap ahead of all the competition, the #7 struggled with the car going into the garage at the 4hr:39m:06s mark of the race with a drive train issue.

The #7 would lose seven laps while they changed the drive train, then would suffer another slow stop when Kamui Kobayashi would have to cycle the car to get it into the pit box.

Second position was the #50 Ferrari which was a lap down from the leading Toyota, the #51 Ferrari was sitting fourth going into the final hour but would fall to sixth with his front left brake being the only one left with 30 minutes in the race to go.

Porsche has shown they have the pace this weekend with the #06 car finishing in third position with a brief scare when the team under-fuelled the car, which resulted in it coming into the pits with only 11 minutes to go.

Like most teams this weekend, the sister car experienced issues with the power steering and hydraulics which sent the #05 to the back of the field.

Vanwall suffered a huge failure with just over an hour of the race to go with the front left brake exploding in a big way, which sent Jacque Villeneuve backward into the ways at turn 10.

In LMP2, United Autosport finished one-two in class, which was forever changing leader.

The #23 car would come out on top, with it being followed by the #22 car in a great weekend for the United Autosport squad, and in third place in the class was the Team WRT Oreca,

In GTE AM the racing was again extremely close with the #33 Corvette defending from #83 Richard Mille AF Corsa Ferrari with just 6 minutes to go in the six-hour race.

Ultimately the #33 Corvette would come out on top in an absolutely thrilling finish, where Nicky Catsburg defended for his life, and in a distant third was the #85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *