On the face of it, Sebastien Bourdais didn’t have the kind of year to justify such a high ranking. There was only one win in the IMSA SportsCar Championship with the Ganassi Cadillac squad.But what might be described as a season of misfortune — the car he shared with Renger vanContinue Reading
A prolific winner in Mercedes GT3 cars on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond in 2023, Jules Gounon’s second straight GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup title capped a year in which he also claimed a third straight Bathurst 12 Hour win. Together with Dani Juncadella, he won more racesContinue Reading
On his GT3 Mercedes swansong, Marciello was nothing if not consistent. The only driver to qualify in the top three at every GT World Challenge Europe Sprint round earned a record-extending 14th series pole at Misano after his Brands Hatch masterclass.Key passes to win at Hockenheim emulated Marciello’s glorious fightbackContinue Reading
There’s a reason why James Calado doesn’t make it higher up the list. And it’s called Antonio Fuoco. The Italian was the stand-out driver in the Ferrari Hypercar line-up, and there were races when the gap he had on pace to his team-mates was significant.PLUS: Ranking the top 10 Hypercar driversContinue Reading
Three wins in IMSA’s GTP class with Meyer Shank Racing’s Acura was a strong return, but a repeat of Tom Blomqvist’s 2022 DPi title success with new team-mate Colin Braun was denied by a 200-point deduction for the tyre data manipulation that tainted the team’s Daytona 24 Hours triumph. EvenContinue Reading
Kamui Kobayashi again missed out on the big prizes in the WEC; neither the title nor a Le Mans win came his way in 2023. But he and team-mates Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez were the ‘winningest’ of the two Toyota line-ups, outscoring the champions 4-2. It should alsoContinue Reading
GT specialist Laurens Vanthoor got his prototype chance with Porsche and Penske in the World Endurance Championship and grabbed it with both hands.He was consistently the quickest of the six drivers in the factory 963 LMDhs over the season. That’s all the more impressive given he’d only made three raceContinue Reading
This was another strong year for Brendon Hartley. He was up there among the fastest of the Toyota drivers – it was nip and tuck between him and Kamui Kobayashi for that honour in the WEC – in a year when he became a four-time world title winner.PLUS: Ranking the topContinue Reading
There were times when Fuoco’s pace aboard Ferrari’s 499P Le Mans Hypercar was nothing short of astounding in the WEC.The prototype rookie’s lap to grab pole position first time out at Sebring took everyone by surprise, the eight-tenths margin by which he beat team-mate Alessandro Pier Guidi to top spotContinue Reading
Last month’s Bahrain 8 Hours marked the final competitive outing for GTE machinery following the decision by FIA and ACO to drop the corresponding class from WEC and the European Le Mans Series next year.GTE cars have been a staple of WEC since the rebirth of the world sportscar championshipContinue Reading