Not all of the final stage are at such a stir interest from both the public and the commands themselves, as happened in this time at the World Championships in endurance racing in Bahrain. The intrigue remained almost to the finish line, moreover, the technical problems of a potential winner in the absolute escalate the situation to the extreme: all nervous.
For example, how well in the «Formula 1» this year: a few steps to the finals is known as a champion of pilots and among manufacturers. Because of this we lost a significant percentage of involvement in what is happening, for example, in the finals in Abu Dhabi.
What good WEC, so the fact that the balance of power between the teams and the athletes are much more balanced and therefore keeps in suspense until the last minute. Last year's champion Audi team until the last moment did not intend to take positions, and although Porsche Team in the lead in the team standings, one of the crews of the four rings to the end remained chances.
About the same classifications were present in the other categories. In LMP2 crew №26 potentially led the Russian team G-Drive Racing as part of Roman Rusinov, Julien channels and Sam Byrd, however, to confirm their claims, they had to finish no lower than 5th place.
In the category LM GTE Am had the great advantage of the crew team №72 SMP Racing (Alexey Basov, Viktor Shaitar and Andrea Bertolini), but again for the victory of the season had to finish safely.
But in the LM GTE Pro in general it was very difficult. We claim the victory crews Porsche Team Manthey team AF Corse and the number of points it was very close, and decided definitely Bahrain. Any alignment can make adjustments. And just as in the senior category, he won here is not the same car that awaited victory, but this is what has played into the hands of eventual winners.
In general, probably, it was the most positive of all the finals, because, I'll tell you what surprises the result was not all hopes were justified.
In the absolute world champions became the Porsche 919 as a part of №17 Mark Weber, Timo Bernhard and Brendan Hartley. They had, of course, well nervous, because at the end of the first hour of the race started to have problems with electric hybrid installation, and the crew lost five laps on the return of the car to life, and in five laps LMP1 is a space difference. It was clear that this time the catch would be impossible, so the team was now the task of the maximum hold the leading position in the crew №18 Romain Dumas and Marc Neil Jani Lieb. Then «Seventeen» was enough to finish seventh to still get the title of the year. If on the first place Audi Fassler, Loterrera Treluye and then for the championship still would have had to be beaten.
Porsche 919 №18 did not disappoint, but the most unpleasant thing happened in the last hour of the race, when №17 again stalled during the pitstop. Mark Weber, who at that time was at the wheel at the final change, tried to keep the poker face, but he is not too successful. Fortunately, engineers have solved the problem fairly quickly and the car returned to the track, not even losing positions. So Mark Weber finally earned the first world title for the first time in his long racing career.
At Roman Rusinov and his crew, the situation was not as dramatic as it was enough to finish in the top five and lightly hold fervor in Sakhir, that all happened to the general satisfaction. But how can you resist to earn the win, not only in the season, but also at the stage when it has all the chances? So pilots LMP2 prototype at number 26, despite calls from race engineer to slow down and drive more accurately, still eager to be the first in Bahrain. And they got it perfectly! Just for a few minutes, they lost the lead on the track competing crew team KCMG, but then again returned to the first position, and at the finish line and became the first. As a result of the 7 stages of the championship they have won four, we took four poles, two were second and only once managed to be classified much lower.
The victory in the season-2015 has become one of the most beautiful and long-awaited, because the team was for this for three years, gradually rising on a pedestal higher and higher! Now Roman is to win next year's Le Mans to join all his titles one more, very important, and I sincerely wish him that!
The team also SMP Racing, serving on the Ferrari 458, shown is just a sample of reason in the strategy of the championship. No passion, and reason prevailed over a team leader Sergey Zlobin and pilots Alexei Basov, Viktor Shaitar and Andrea Bertolini, when they decided not to fight for the stage win for the victory in the Championship. Very calmly and methodically, they spent the 6 hours without risking unnecessarily, and closer to the title with each round of the competition. In the end, they won the season-2015 winning team AF Corse with a margin of 17 points!
But the most pleasant moment, of course, there was a meeting of pilots in Moscow's Domodedovo airport, where their fans came to support the team. Several dozen fans stretched Russian flags and cheered our avtosportsmenov loud shouts of joy — and of course the pictures with the characters and take their autographs.
In parallel with the performance at Ferrari, at the stage in Bahrain has been declared as a prototype BR01 Nissan in the LMP2 category in the team colors SMP Racing, but called AF Racing, which ran Mikhail Aleshin, David and Nicolas Minassian Markozov. The crew did not fight for a place at the end of the year, but rather spent fighting the tests — and this was due to the situation around the sanctions against Russia. The fact that at the beginning of the season the crew was denied the opportunity to buy the right tires. As a result, it was decided to perform under a different license that solved all problems (Europe turned out to be important only in the line of official documents), but time was lost. However, in Bahrain, the crew №44 finished in 5th place. We hope that next year they will have the opportunity to compete for a place on the podium!
