‘Maybe the best’ – Sébastien Buemi’s wonder-drive in WEC finale

Sébastien Buemi WEC, Bahrain, 2/11/24

Each issue, we nominate a driver from a recent race who deserves recognition for a job well done. This month’s finest performance came in Sakhir at the final WEC race of 2024

“Maybe the best,” was how Sébastien Buemi described his comeback drive that secured Toyota its third win of the 2024 World Endurance Championship and a sixth consecutive manufacturers’ title, very much against the odds. That’s some claim given the 36-year-old’s vast experience and glittering record in sports car racing and Formula E.

But this was a classic win-or-bust performance at the WEC’s Bahrain 8 Hours season finale, and Toyota was duly grateful that the four-time Le Mans victor and four-time WEC champion made the difference when it counted at the climax.

Buemi converted team-mate Brendon Hartley’s pole position into an early lead, only for a rear-end punt by Hiroshi Koizumi aboard a TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette after 18 minutes to spin him around. The Swiss rejoined in seventh.

Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa stoically played their parts by completing the hard miles on less than optimum tyres in the middle stints, to leave Buemi with six fresh Michelins for the final double. A pair of safety car interludes that closed up the Hypercar pack helped too. Still, with just over an hour to go, Buemi was 10th, 15sec off the lead. With the sister GR010 Hybrid out with a fuel pump problem, only victory would do for Buemi to snatch the manufacturers’ crown from Porsche, and now he went to work.

Buemi was up to second after his final stop, then used his tyre advantage to charge past Matt Campbell’s Penske Porsche 963 with just over half an hour to go to win by nearly 30sec. “It’s crazy to think we won considering how it was going at some point,” said Buemi. “Against all the odds, it’s an amazing feeling for the team to win the world championship. When our car was down in 10th, I thought we were done. But my team-mates did a good job hanging on with the old tyres and that meant I had a tyre advantage at the end.”

As expected, Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor, Kévin Estre and André Lotterer wrapped up the drivers’ title in Bahrain, but it was Buemi who stole the limelight.

Hartley was full of praise for his team-mate. “Séb did an unbelievable stint,” commented the Kiwi driver. “He was the star; it was an incredible drive.”

Driver briefing notes 

Reviewing winners from around the world of racing

• Dutch driver Renger van der Zande pulled a spectacular pass on Nick Tandy’s Penske Porsche 963 with just 15 minutes of the 10-hour Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta to go, to give Chip Ganassi a sign-off victory in its last race as Cadillac’s works team.
• Nigel Greensall and John Spiers had a remarkable time at Silverstone’s Motor Racing Legends meeting, winning four consecutive two-driver races in one afternoon. They jumped from Cobra to Capri to Lister Knobbly to Mustang to claim their quadruple. “I haven’t seen John since lunchtime,” quipped Greensall on the podium.
• You can read about it elsewhere, but it would be remiss not to mention here Max Verstappen’s landmark drive from 17th to victory in Brazil. His best in Formula 1 so far? Probably.