The final race for the LMP2 class in WEC was a messy one. We saw the team WRT’s car #41 wrap up the title with relative ease, their second Endurance Trophy for LMP2 drivers. Before the race there were two other cars with mathematical chance for winning the title. Inter Europol Competition’s challenge folded when their car #34 stopped twice on track due to technical glitch. They finished the race with unabated pace but the chance was gone. The second contender- United Autosport, with car #22, had their challenge heavily compromised by a contact with car #4 at the first corner of the race and the consecutive 1 minute stop and go penalty. This left #41 to steadily rise from their low starting position, eighth, to win the race.

We also saw two heavy penalties handed due to technical infringement which is somewhat difficult to understand- tyre pressures bellow the minimum allowed.

Before we wave goodbye to the LMP2 class in WEC we take a dive into the data from the race, generously provided by FIA WEC and Al Kamel Systems, to try and understand what determined the finishing order in the race.

Figure 2 shows the two main factors that determined the finishing order in the LMP2 class at Bahrain (more detailed description of the model is given here). The combination of the two parameters explains perfectly the finishing order, shown in the right column, with the exception of car #34 which finished four places below the expected. As mentioned in the beginning of the article, #34 stopped twice on track for a total of ~55 seconds. The first stoppage caused them to loose four positions. They did not loose any during the second, shorter stoppage but their race was heavily compromised. At the end they finished sixth, matching their starting position. Interestingly, as Figure 1 shows, they did not suffer any pace loss during the rest of the race, being the third fastest car 0.059 seconds per lap slower than the fastest car #23.

United Autosports’ car #22 had a mathematical chance of winning the title but following a collision on lap 1, and the associated 1 minute stop and go penalty, they had a lackluster race lagging on average 0.220 seconds per lap from United’s other car- #23.

The fastest car in the race- #23 by United Autosports got 90 seconds stop and go penalty due to having their tyre(s) underinflated, below the minimum allowed pressure. This is not a mistake that team capable of setting up and manning the fastest car in the LMP2 race would easily make. What is even more bizarre is that the same thing happened earlier in the race to Vector Sport’s car #10.

The Alpine cars #35 and #36 were clearly off the pace in Bahrain. Occupying the last two positions in race pace and lagging at least 0.3 seconds per lap behind the next slowest car #28 of team Jota. Their car #36 did gain a couple of positions due to the above-mentioned penalties for United Autosports' cars.

All-in-all the messy race in Bahrain was not a fitting tribute to the racing that the LMP2 class have regularly delivered over the years. 

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