WEC: Ferrari Triple Podium in Qatar

      The first stage of the 2025 World Endurance Championship will go down in the history of motorsport and will remain in the memory of fans thanks to the triple podium of Ferrari at the circuit in Losail, where the "1812 kilometers of Qatar" took place. This is how the Ferrari press release dedicated to this event begins.

      The victory for the factory team from Maranello was secured by the No. 50 crew consisting of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Niklas Nielsen – it was this international trio that we saw at the top of the podium at Le Mans last year. Last night, their car was the first to cross the finish line, but in just 2.348 seconds for 318 laps of the race, it was lost to the same 499P hypercar, only yellow, in which Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica and Phil Hanson compete for the independent AF Corse team.

      The third place went to another "official" Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Jace Callado and Antonio Giovinazzi. Last weekend was just perfect for the legendary Italian brand, because it was Giovinazzi who won pole last week, and his team-mate, Pierre Guidi, yesterday recorded the best lap of the race, which lasted more than 10 hours.

      The Ferrari crews dominated yesterday, but it wasn't clear until the last stages of the race which of them would win. Robert Kubica gained some advantage after the penultimate pit stop, as he did not change the tires, limiting himself only to refueling. But it turned out that the Polish veteran drove three lengths of the race on one set of rubber, while car No. 50 had fresh tires.

      It was this crew, whose hypercar was piloted by Fuoco in the final segment of the race, that gained the advantage, because Kubica had to stand in the AF Corse pits a little longer at the last pit stop.

      Now the advantage was already on the side of last year's winners of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, and they successfully implemented it. Pierre Guidi caught up with Kubica in the last laps, but could not get ahead of him.

      The fourth place was taken by the crew of the BMW factory team, which this year, along with Dries Ventura and Raffaele Marcello, Kevin Magnussen, who finished his career in Formula 1 and joined the WEC, is competing for. By the way, at the end of the race, this trio gained an advantage over the two Toyota cars chasing them, also due to the fact that they dispensed with rubber replacement at the last pit stops.

      In the LMGT3 class, the race was won by the TF Sport team, driving a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, piloted by Daniel Hunkadella, Johnny Edgar and Ben Keating. They managed to beat the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of the United Autosports team (crewed by Gregoire Sosi, James Cottingham and Sebastien Bode), although the British sports cars had the advantage in speed in qualifying.

      It is worth adding that unlike last year's race in Qatar, this time its participants failed to complete the entire 1,812-kilometer distance, i.e. 335 laps. The finish was given after the 10-hour time limit.

      The next stage of the WEC will be held on April 20 in Imola.