Six hours and 35 minutes into the World Endurance Championship’s most prestigious race, the #83 Ferrari 499P pushed by Kubica swerved into Vanthoor’s #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 as they lapped the #92 Manthey Pure Rxcing GT3 entry on the strategy to Mulsanne nook, which despatched the Belgian driver into the wall and brought on the BMW’s retirement from the race.
The #83 Ferrari was given a 30-second stop-and-go penalty however managed to remain on the lead lap, which allowed it to stay in victory competition because of present security automotive guidelines gathering all vehicles on the lead lap when the race is neutralised.
Vanthoor was livid with the stewards’ determination and took to X (previously Twitter) to specific his discontent: “Thanks for all of your messages, I’m okay! Only a small concussion! Only a dangerous day for our sport, pushing somebody off at 300km/h and getting a 30-sec penalty. Sorry @FIAWEC, dropping belief right here.”
Group boss Vosse informed Motorsport.com that it was insupportable that the Ferrari which had brought on the crash was capable of finding its means again to the entrance of the pack, and mentioned he would have advocated for a three-minute or five-minute penalty – which might have dropped the #83 automotive a lap down.
“On the finish, it’s one thing that we’ll not settle for,” the Belgian mentioned. “For me, the penalty was very unfair. You’re taking the race away from somebody. You need to be by some means slowed down far more than with the ability to struggle for the rostrum once more three hours later.”
Vincent Vosse, Group principal WRT
Photograph by: Marc Fleury
Nonetheless, Vosse has no onerous emotions for Kubica, a former Group WRT driver who received the ELMS and WEC championships within the LMP2 class with the Belgian outfit in 2021 and 2023 respectively, whereas coming second on the Le Mans 24 Hours final yr with team-mates Rui Andrade and Louis Deletraz.
“I am near Robert – he drove for us for just a few years,” Vosse identified. “We received the championship with him final yr, and he is somebody that I respect so much.
“I’ll say that I didn’t count on one thing like that from him, however I can’t choose him. First, I’ll calm down and communicate to him most likely subsequent week concerning the incident.
“From a sportsman of his stage – and he is actually a sportsman, as a result of I see him like that – I’ve to say, sadly, I have been dissatisfied concerning the state of affairs.”
The Le Mans 24 Hours has been disappointing general for the BMW manufacturing unit Hypercar squad, with Marco Wittmann spinning the identical #15 automotive on lap 6, whereas Robin Frijns crashed the #20 machine after bouncing off a kerb on the Ford chicane at 6:23pm. The automotive limped to the pits and went again on monitor solely 21 hours later to see the chequered flag, with out being labeled.
Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, defined to Motorsport.com that the automotive might have been again on monitor earlier however the German constructor did not wish to threat additional harm forward of the Sao Paulo WEC spherical on 14 July.
“Le Mans can all the time be fairly brutal,” Roos added. “Very first thing is you should not do any errors, which we did not handle. Too many errors taking place.”
“That is the way you attempt to win races at the moment,” Vosse analysed. “Sadly, we noticed that we have been fast at some stage, however possibly a bit of bit too fast, or making an attempt too onerous.
“We didn’t be taught as a lot as we had hoped to about our vehicles, as a result of on the finish, we couldn’t undergo the evening with our vehicles. For example that we’ve got discovered what to not do subsequent yr.”
Addtional reporting by Heiko Stritzke and Rachit Thukral
