AUSTIN, Texas - Robert Shwartzman held off a charging Kamui Kobayashi to give the AF Corse team its first win of 2024 in the six-hour Lone Star LeMans at the Circuit of the Americas in the World Endurance Championship (WEC). They were the sixth different winning team in six World Endurance Championship races this year with two rounds remaining for the series. Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye rounded out the driver lineup.
The WEC returned to the United States for the first time in four years.
Shwartzman assumed driving duties in the final third of the race, just past the four-hour mark, and kept his Ferrari 499P up front to beat Kobayashi to the line by 1.780 seconds, a razor thin margin in an endurance race.
"[The No. 7 team’s] pace was really strong, so my strategist said, ‘just stay close,’ and they were having really good pace,” Shwartzman said. “At some point in the middle of that stint, [my] first stint, I received info that there was something going on; that they received an infringement, so I knew I had to stay close because we didn’t know what the penalty would look like.
“I knew that even if there was a slight chance of a drive through for them, they would be behind and giving pressure so every lap counts. When they took the penalty in [my] second stint the only target I had was to keep the car on track. It was really difficult, especially in those last laps when I started really to lose grip, The car was quite hard to drive, I was drifting around, but we managed to take the win.”
In Round 4, the AF Corse team was in contention to win the biggest race of the WEC season in the 24 Hours of LeMans before an electronics issue sidelined them.
“As Robert [Kubica] said it was redemption for LeMans because that was a very big loss for us” Shwartzman continued. “We were really hungry for the win.”
The contest was tighter than the final numbers suggest. In the final hour of competition, Kobayashi incurred a penalty for failing to respect a yellow flag and was forced to give up a 12-second lead in the Toyota Gazoo Racing No. 7. Kobayashi and his crew of drivers won Round 2 at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy.
Kobayashi was confused about the penalty through the end of the race. Replays revealed that he accelerated too quickly in a clear portion of the track while a local caution well down the straightaway, leaving some to wonder about the severity of the penalty.
After finally deferring to officials and serving his drive through penalty, Kobayashi returned to the track nine seconds behind Shwartzman and determined for vindication. The driver of the No. 7 pressed the limits of the Hypercar and steadily reduced his deficit. Kobayashi was inside of four seconds back with 13 minutes remaining, within three seconds with eight minutes on the clock, and two seconds down with three laps remaining.
In those finale laps, Kobayashi pushed too hard in Turn 1 and lost time when he jumped the curb in the hairpin.
Shwartzman was also racing at, and occasionally past, the limits. In his closing laps, Shwartzman was cautioned for exceeding track limits. Disaster nearly struck a lap later when he nearly ran into at GT3 car as he sliced through traffic.
The No. 50 Ferrari AF Corse team with Fuoco Antonio racing the final stint rounded out the podium.