Oak Racing claims 2013 LMP2 World Endurance Championship

Oak Racing has claimed the 2013 LMP2 World Endurance Championship and G-Drive Racing has won this weekends 6 Hours of Bahrain race, the final round of the 2013 series.

France’s #35 Oak Racing Morgan Nissan needed to finish fifth to ensure championship victory but did land in the Middle East as favourites for the weekend. The team drivers of Bertrand Baguette, Ricardo Gonzalez and Martin Plowman placed fourth and took the team and driver championships while G-Drive Racing took their fourth race win of 2013 finishing the race first in class and third overall.

The first corner of the WEC finale reshuffled the LMP2 class order at the very beginning of this six-hour race. G-Drive Racing led the class for the first stint but a different fuel strategy lost them the lead to Pecom. After two hours and 40 minutes the Russian squad regained the lead in the Oreca Nissan, taking advantage of a Pecom mistake.

Both Oak Racing title contending Morgan Nissans had lost out in the first lap melee and it was only at the three hour race mid-point, as the race was entering its night phase, that the #24 car was in contention for a podium position, with the title leader #35 in fifth, driving the race they needed to secure the championship.

“Pace is up compared to 2012 in the LMP2 class”

Trying to catch the front runners, Pecom had an incident which effectively ended their race, leaving G-Drive Racing’s number 26 car in number one spot and number 24 Oak Racing as the challenger. Greaves Motorsport who had a strong race and were in hot pursuit, despite losing time with a blocked air-intake, its drivers including rookie Nissan GT Academy driver Wolfgang Reip, who was right on the pace. These three held the top three slots all the way to the flag.

Pace is up compared to 2012 in the LMP2 class since its last visit to Bahrain with quali times being reduced – Oak Racing’s number 24 car which set the 2012 fastest race lap of 1:53.603, qualified at 1:52.368. This year the same car set a 1:51.718 four-lap average to qualify third with a fastest qualifying lap of 1:50.666, nearly two seconds faster than last year, and a best race lap of 1:52.751.

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