Six hours and 35 minutes into the most prestigious race of the World Endurance Championship, the #83 Ferrari driven by Robert Kubica collided with the #15 BMW M of Dries Vanthoor when both were lapping the #92 Manthey Pure Rxcing at the Mulsanne corner. , which caused the Belgian driver to crash into the wall and caused the BMW to withdraw from the race.
The #83 Ferrari received a 30-second penalty, but managed to stay on the lead lap, allowing it to stay in the fight for victory thanks to the current safety car rules that bring together all the cars that They are on their head.
Vanthoor was furious with the stewards’ decision and took to seconds. Sorry @FIAWEC, I’m losing confidence,” he wrote.
Team boss Vosse told Motorsport.com that it was intolerable that the Ferrari that had caused the accident could return to the front of the pelotonand assured that the fair thing would have been a penalty of three or five minutes, which would have left the #83 car with a lost lap.
“In the end, it is something we are not going to accept,” said the Belgian. “For me, the penalty was very unfair. You eliminate someone from the race. You deserve to be penalized in a much more severe way, you can’t be fighting for the podium three hours later.”
Vincent Vosse, WRT team manager
Photo: Marc Fleury
However, Vosse does not hold a grudge against Kubicaformer Team WRT driver who won the ELMS and WEC championships in the LMP2 class with the Belgian team in 2021 and 2023, with another second place at last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans with teammates Rui Andrade and Louis Deletraz.
“I’m good friends with Robert, he drove for us for several years,” Vosse noted. “We won the championship with him last year and he’s someone I respect a lot.”
“I will say that I didn’t expect something like that from him, but I won’t judge him. I’ll calm down first and talk to him probably next week about the incident.”
“From an athlete of his level – and he really is an athlete, because that’s how I see him – I have to say that, unfortunately, the situation has disappointed me,” he added.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans has been disappointing overall for the BMW factory team, with Marco Wittmann spinning the #15 on lap 6, while Robin Frijns crashed the #20 after bouncing off a curb at the Ford chicane. The car made it to the pits as best it could and rolled again just 21 hours later to cross the checkered flag, without being classified.
Andreas Rooshead of BMW M Motorsport, told Motorsport.com that the car could have returned to the track sooner, but the German manufacturer did not want to risk further damage before the Sao Paulo WEC round, scheduled for July 14.
“Le Mans can always be quite tough,” Roos added. “The first thing is not to make mistakes, which we haven’t achieved. We made too many mistakes.”
“That’s how you try to win races nowadays,” Vosse analyzed. “Unfortunately, we saw that we were fast at times, but maybe too fast, or trying too hard.”
“We have not learned as much as we expected about our cars, because we have not been able to spend the night on the track. Let’s say that we have learned what we should not do next year,” he concluded.
