2024 FIA World Endurance Championship
Doha, Qatar
February 28 – March 2, 2024
Photo: Drew Gibson
At the halfway point of the 1812 km race in Qatar, Andre Lotterer is leading with a 30-second advantage over Jean-Eric Vergne.
In the fourth hour, the gap between Estre in the leading Porsche and Jensen in the second-place Peugeot remained at around 30 seconds. Both drivers maintained a similar pace with no significant changes.
During the next round of pit stops, Estre handed the car over to teammate Lotterer, while Jensen did the same, handing the Peugeot over to Vergne.
As the stage progressed, Vergne began to close in on the three-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, reducing the gap to 22 seconds at one point. However, due to pit stops and traffic, the gap has now widened again to 26 seconds, with both drivers pushing.
In third place is Lotterer’s factory teammate Fred Makowiecki, trailing Vergne by approximately 20 seconds.
Callum Ilott holds fourth position in the JOTA Porsche, while Earl Bamber is in fifth place in the Cadillac V-Series.R.
Leading the LMGT3 category is Davide Rigon in the AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3. Alex Malykhin, who led for a significant portion of the race in the Manthey Pure Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R, is in second place, followed by Alessio Rovera in the sister AF Corse Ferrari.
However, none of these cars have made pit stops yet. Among the cars that have stopped, Alex Riberas in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 is currently in fifth place. Riberas took the lead from Malykhin when the race reached the halfway point but then stopped to hand over to his teammate Daniel Mancinelli.
Rigon currently has a seven-second advantage over Malykhin, with a gap of approximately 10 seconds to Rovera in third. Valentino Rossi is in fourth place in the WRT BMW M4 GT3, with Riberas in fifth.
© 2024
