AF Corse have scored a pair of championship successes following a stunning final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in Bahrain.
The team, running in GTE Pro, scored victories in the GTE Pro and World Endurance Cup for GT drivers, with the quartet of Gianmaria Bruni, Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander and Kamui Kobayashi – but it was Bruni who scored the Cup win over team mate Fisichella, thanks to a race win shared with Vilander in the #51 458 Italia
In GTE Am it was Enzo Potolicchio‘s 8Star Motorsports with Ferrari team that scored the Italian manufacturers third crown after winning the Am title by only three points over Aston Martin Racing following a second place class finish.
AF Corse were unchallenged in their pursuit of their titles, at the beginning of the Six Hours of Bahrain it seemed like the titles were Aston Martin’s to lose with a good point total at the top of the table seemingly seeing them in the driving seat as it were.
However, both the #97 and the #99 had to retire from the race before the 70% mark meaning they scored zero points in the crunch round.
It was a good day though, for Porsche AG Team Manthey following a second and fourth place team finish for the new for Bahrain 991 GT3 RSR Evos which are said to be 30% new compared to the previous iteration. The fourth place was enough for Marc Lieb and Richard Lietz to secure joint fourth in the points table only 3.5 points shy of the Aston pairing of Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke.
As mentioned above, Aston Martin did not have the rub of the green in the Pro class but in Am the Young Driver AMR trio of Nicki Thiim, Kristian Poulsen and Christoffer Nygaard scored a strong win to provide a triumphant end to a bitter-sweet season.
