WIN AND DOUBLE PODIUM AT FUJI EXTENDS CHAMPIONSHIP LEAD FOR TEAM WRT
Team WRT brilliantly took its second LMP2 win of the year at the 6 Hours of Fuji, signing a double podium finish. Rui Andrade, Louis Delétraz and Robert Kubica brought car #41 to victory, the second after Spa’s, with Robin Frijns, Sean Gelael and Ferdinand Habsburg taking third.
With this solid result, Team WRT and the trio of car #41 extend their lead in the LMP2 championship. They now have a 33 point lead going into the final round of the season, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, which will has the potential to award the maximum of 39 points.
Team WRT Principal Vincent Vosse was clearly satisfied at the end of the Japanese weekend: “After some challenging outings with our GT3 program, it’s really nice to live a positive weekend such as this. There is little to say, it was simply a perfect weekend by everybody in the team. The drivers have been outstanding, the crews made faultless pit stops and the strategy was the right one. We go away with a double podium finish and strengthened lead in the championship ahead of the final round. It is also very rewarding to sign our third success in Japan, this wonderful country so fond of motorsports, after our last year win, also in the WEC, and the 10h of Suzuka in 2019.”
The three free practice sessions that opened the weekend were marked by changing weather, with alternating humid and drying track conditions. This saw the Oreca 07 Gibsons of Team WRT quite often among the front-runners, with car #41 topping the rankings in the second session. In qualifying, that same car took second, with Louis Delétraz a mere 0.091s shy from the pole position, while car #31 qualified seventh.
At the start, Rui Andrade in #41 and #31’s Sean Gelael were second and fourth before the first corner drama among Hypercars and a trip to the gravel for a GTE Ferrari forced the safety car out. At the restart, Gelael took third and Andrade sixth, with the latter climbing up to fourth after the first pit stop. Those positions remained stable, when Robert Kubica and Ferdinand Habsburg took over the wheel and the race became a duel between Team WRT and United Autosports.
The mid-race mark was reached and passed with no major changes, but car #31 eventually took the lead at the beginning of the fifth hour, with Louis Delétraz at the wheel, while Robin Frijns was a close fourth in car #31.
In the final hour, thanks to a perfect strategy, car #41 secured the win while a very inspired Robin Frijns managed to reach the 2nd position over Albuquerque few laps from the end. But caught in heavy traffic he was passed again in the final lap, taking third at the flag.
