DEBRIEF: The 8 things we learnt from the incredible Qatar 1812km Qualifying
The 2024 World Endurance Championship season kicks-off with a nail-biting qualifying session, the first of it's kind – OE Founder Tim Fullbrook analyses
After what felt like a false-start to the 2024 World Endurance Championship season with the delayed Prologue, this afternoon’s qualifying made that feel like a distant memory as Porsche Penske Motorsport and TF Sport claimed class poles for the opening round of the season.
The Qatar 1812KM has received somewhat mixed reviews from in and out the paddock, but overriding a potentially uninteresting Grade 1 circuit (in comparison to the rest of the schedule) is a new-look WEC.
The championship feels refreshed, renewed, and almost reinvented with the two-class, Hypercar and LMGT3 structure. The former, bolstered by new entries bringing the category to 19 cars, the latter, a completely new category with nine of the world’s finest GT marques.
Qualifying itself featured a new format, Hyperpole making its first appearance outside of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
For the first in a new ‘Debrief’ format of articles, here’s the 8 things we learnt from the Qatar 1812KM Qualifying…
1. Porsche pace wasn’t just for the Prologue
The pace of the Porsche 963 LMDh has been a talking point all week. The German manufacturer topping the times in all four Prologue sessions, customer team Hertz Team JOTA heading the order on Monday, and factory programme Porsche Penske Motorsport on Tuesday.
Just testing, right? Well, the timesheet-topping pace continued into Thursday free practice where the #5 Porsche Penske 963 headed both sessions. The streak only came to an end in FP3 when a low fuel run early in the session from Alex Lynn put the #2 Cadillac in P1 by over a tenth.
Questions around the pace of, namely, the Toyota and Ferrari cars continued all the way up to the start of qualifying where ultimately Porsche would prove that the testing and practice pace was legitimate.
Campbell topped the first part of qualifying, PPM teammate Estre in P7, both JOTA cars made it through in P3 and P10 – the #99 Proton Competition the only of the five 963s that failed to make the cut – before the Australian would again top the times in the shoot-out for pole stopping Toyota from bagging a fourth consecutive pole.
Porsche are going to hope that the one-lap pace converts to stint speed in the 10 hour event tomorrow.
2. Toyota bounce back, almost…
Toyota were adamant after the Prologue that their GR010 was a long way off the overall pace. Driver-Principal Kamui Kobayashi insisting that they might even “struggle to score points” in the race.
There was plenty of suggestion Toyota might be hiding their true pace in the Prologue and Free Practice, and the Japanese marque certainly showed their car had more to offer than first thought; but Qualifying proved a backhanded compliment.
Nyck de Vries, on his Hypercar debut, was stellar behind the wheel of the #7 GR010, taking it through to Hyperpole with ease and coming within +0.164s of claiming pole, but the reigning world champions would fail to make it through to the top ten shootout.
Brendon Hartley was on the bubble in P10 as the checkered flag waved, only to be knocked out by Lynn’s final lap in the #2 Cadillac.
It would be typical Toyota to still have pace in the bag for tomorrow’s race, but they’re going to have a tougher time bouncing back.
3. New format adds jeopardy to quali sessions
The WEC’s qualifying format has changed almost as many times as the cars and classes, but the Hyperpole arrangement might be a much needed addition to the qualifying afternoon.
Previously the championship ran 15 minute sessions for each class, now both Hypercar and LMGT3 have a 12 minute knock-out with the top 10 cars making it through to the 10 minute Hyperpole session.
The first use of the format outside of Le Mans saw a big scalp claimed in the reigning Hypercar champions, the #8 Toyota, failing to make Hyperpole by +0.020s and in LMGT3 two tenths separated tenth and eleventh in the fight to make the cut.
The bragging rights, the spotlight on the eventual pole sitters, and ultimately the disappointment of not making the top ten, have all ramped-up for 2024.
4. Peugeot pack a punch with double Hyperpole appearance
Peugeot come into 2024 as somewhat of an unknown quantity. Their wingless 9X8 on the way out, the package routinely unsatisfactory for the drivers, yet armed with a stable BOP and a circuit that lends to some of the car’s strengths, the french manufacturer saw both #93 and #94 cars into Hyperpole.
Vergne and Vandoorne would finish the session P6 and P10 respectively, but the former’s 1m40.067 lap was a tenth off a P4 finish – something Peugeot would have shaken-on pre-season. Sandwiched between the two cars on the grid will be the sole Cadillac, the Le Mans-winning #51 Ferrari 499P and the #38 Hertz JOTA Porsche.
The race will be a different beast altogether, but for now Peugeot can be very pleased with how Friday afternoon panned out.
5. Tyre warm-up set to be a major factor in 2024
Across the 2023 season we saw how much of an impact the ban on tyre warmers had on races, ask Antonio Fuoco, but they’re set to have a greater impact in qualifying.
With two short sessions, 12 minutes and 10 minutes, Friday’s qualifying saw drivers spend almost half the session preparing the hard-compound Michelin rubber for their hot lap attempts.
At Lusail, where laps are close around the 1m 45s mark for a Hypercar ‘prep-lap’ this won’t be much of an issue, but fast forward to a longer circuit like Spa, or potentially in the cool conditions of a venue like Fuji, and teams may be faced with only one or two attempts at setting a quick time.
6. Alpine head newcomers, but fail to make Hyperpole
Alpine have not had much to shout about in the first official WEC sessions with the A424 LMDh. The team are set improving race pace, guaranteeing reliability, and developing the car overall in the first half of the season; so it would have come as a pleasant surprise to beat BMW in the first qualifying session.
The three LMDh marques (Alpine, BMW and Lamborghini) have been consistently in the bottom half of the Hypercar times across the week in Qatar, but a last lap effort from Lapierre would put the #36 Alpine ahead of both BMW M Team WRT cars and almost a tenth shy of making Hyperpole.
“There are only big teams and names out there,” explained Lapierre post-qualifying, “So it’s really hard to just come and out-perform them. We have to be happy with P12.”
7. TF Sport land first blow against LMGT3 front runners
Tom van Rompuy and TF Sport claimed a bit of history in scoring the first WEC LMGT3 pole position, but the Belgian driver did more than just set the fastest time behind the wheel of the #81 Corvette Z06 GT3.R.
The newest in Corvette’s ‘R’ bloodline is the first purpose-built GT3 car from the American marque, and had a difficult debut event at IMSA’s Rolex 24 at Daytona in hands of the near-factory Pratt Miller effort and in the hands of customers AWA.
Up against the might of AF Corse, and United Autosport, both of whom running proven GT3 packages in the Ferrari 296 and McLaren 720S EVO, TF Sport landed a big uppercut against their rivals and with a pole margin of +0.807s, Van Rompuy and team confirmed that the Corvette will definitely be at the sharp end across the inaugural season for LMGT3.
8. Manthey Pure Rxcing poised as surprise package
You wouldn’t often read Manthey and ‘surprise package’ in the same sentence, but in this new LMGT3 class the form books are seemingly deposited out the nearest window.
Pure Rxcing have been stellar in GT3 competition across championships, winning the GTWC Europe Endurance Bronze Cup in 2023, and in February of this year claimed the GT3 crown in Asian Le Mans Series, but across the Prologue and Free Practice sessions have failed to feature at the top of the order.
Malykhin, however, looked sharp in qualifying. Firstly splitting the Heart of Racing and D’Station Aston Martins at in the first session, before heading the tightly-packed group behind Van Rompuy in the TF Sport Corvette.
With the most laps of the LMGT3 class tallied in the Prologue, there’s a clear focus on race pace – the #92’s Hyperpole performance a definite warning shot fired on Friday afternoon.