Due to the status of the French classic as a flagship in the WEC calendar, the victory in Le Mans brings the leading crew 50 points plus one extra point for pole position in each class, while no more than 26 points are awarded in the six -hour- Events that make up most of the season.
After the victories in Portimao and Monza, United Autosports came to this year’s postponed Le Mans race with a healthy lead in the LMP2 standings, just because a generator problem at Le Mans kept it tenth in the class and enabled three teams to form the team in the title overtake fight.
The Anglo-American team was unable to catch up with its rivals in the first race in Bahrain last weekend and is now 25 points behind the Le Mans winner WRT squad, with a maximum of 39 points in 8th place. this weekend available hours of title decision-making.
Speaking to Motorsport.com, Albuquerque said he doesn’t like how success or failure at Le Mans affects the WEC World Championship fight, even if it played in his favor.
“Le Mans is a big part of the WEC; The win alone determines how good your season was, ”said Albuquerque, who shares # 22 United Oreca with Phil Hanson and Fabio Scherer. We have seen in the past when we won Le Mans [in 2020] and our main competitor had a problem and got zero points.
“If we hadn’t had an electrical problem at Le Mans that caused our generator to fail, we would still have been fighting for the championship because Le Mans has double points. WRT got 50 points on us. They were behind us and they overtook us by a wide margin. It’s hard to catch.
“Of course if you come here [in Bahrain] where there are 65 points left on the table [across the two races], you can win mathematically, but it’s very rare for someone to have a DNF. So it just puts you out of the running for the championship.
“In any championship, you want every fan to watch the race through to the last lap and not think, ‘Yeah, math is done so why should I watch it?” There isn’t that much battle for the title.
“Unfortunately, WRT, the leaders, and also JOTA drove a good race [in Bahrain 6 Hours]. We had to win, unfortunately it didn’t come to us, so it will be super difficult to watch the last race now. “
The WRT trio Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi and Robin Frijns are currently at the top of the table with 113 points, Sean Gelael, Tom Blomqvist and Stoffel Vandoorne are only five points behind him in JOTA # 28. Anthony Davidson, Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez are also fighting for the title in the other JOTA mission, but 17 points behind the leading WRT crew.
Albuquerque says the table’s top two teams may not be taking unnecessary risks this weekend, giving United a chance to end the season with a third win.
“I think [WRT and JOTA] We’re going to fight for the championship, ”he said. “You will try to secure the championship first. You have to be careful with those who don’t push for the championship like us, and maybe the other JOTA. We go more for the individual victories. That’s all that counts.
“We assume that [WRT] have great pace, they won the first race [in Bahrain] and JOTA finished second in the race. So I assume that they will push for victory too, but they won’t take as much risk as we do, we don’t have much to lose. “
The 8 hours of the Bahrain WEC will be broadcast live on Motorsport.tv. Click here for more information.
Comments are closed.