Six hours and 35 minutes into the World Endurance Championship’s most prestigious race, the #83 Ferrari 499P pushed by Kubica swerved into Vanthoor’s #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 as they lapped the #92 Manthey Pure Rxcing GT3 entry on the method to Mulsanne nook, which despatched the Belgian driver into the wall and precipitated the BMW’s retirement from the race.
The #83 Ferrari was given a 30-second stop-and-go penalty however managed to remain on the lead lap, which allowed it to stay in victory competition because of present security automotive guidelines gathering all automobiles on the lead lap when the race is neutralised.
Vanthoor was livid with the stewards’ determination and took to X (previously Twitter) to specific his discontent: “Thanks for all of your messages, I’m okay! Only a small concussion! Only a dangerous day for our sport, pushing somebody off at 300km/h and getting a 30-sec penalty. Sorry @FIAWEC, dropping belief right here.”
Staff boss Vosse instructed Autosport that it was insupportable that the Ferrari which had precipitated the crash was capable of finding its means again to the entrance of the pack, and stated he would have advocated for a three-minute or five-minute penalty – which might have dropped the #83 automotive a lap down.
“On the finish, it’s one thing that we are going to not settle for,” the Belgian stated. “For me, the penalty was very unfair. You’re taking the race away from somebody. You should be in some way slowed down rather more than having the ability to battle for the rostrum once more three hours later.”
Vincent Vosse, Staff principal WRT
Photograph by: Marc Fleury
Nonetheless, Vosse has no laborious emotions for Kubica, a former Team WRT driver who gained the ELMS and WEC championships within the LMP2 class with the Belgian outfit in 2021 and 2023 respectively, whereas coming second on the Le Mans 24 Hours final 12 months with team-mates Rui Andrade and Louis Deletraz.
“I am near Robert – he drove for us for a couple of years,” Vosse identified. “We gained the championship with him final 12 months, and he is somebody that I respect loads.
“I’ll say that I didn’t count on one thing like that from him, however I cannot choose him. First, I’ll settle down and converse to him in all probability subsequent week in regards to the incident.
“From a sportsman of his stage – and he is actually a sportsman, as a result of I see him like that – I’ve to say, sadly, I have been dissatisfied in regards to the scenario.”
The Le Mans 24 Hours has been disappointing general for the BMW manufacturing facility Hypercar squad, with Marco Wittmann spinning the identical #15 automotive on lap six, whereas Robin Frijns crashed the #20 machine after bouncing off a kerb on the Ford chicane at 6:23pm.
The automotive limped to the pits and went again on observe solely 21 hours later to see the chequered flag, with out being categorized.
Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, defined to Autosport that the automotive may have been again on observe earlier however the German constructor did not wish to danger additional injury forward of the Sao Paulo WEC spherical on 14 July.
“Le Mans can at all times be fairly brutal,” Roos added. “Very first thing is you should not do any errors, which we did not handle. Too many errors occurring.”
“That is the way you attempt to win races immediately,” Vosse analysed. “Sadly, we noticed that we had been fast at some stage, however possibly just a little bit too fast, or attempting too laborious.
“We didn’t study as a lot as we had hoped to about our automobiles, as a result of on the finish, we couldn’t undergo the night time with our automobiles. To illustrate that now we have discovered what to not do subsequent 12 months.”
Addtional reporting by Heiko Stritzke and Rachit Thukral