Written by Evan Veer, Edited by Sameena Khan
The World Endurance Championship returns to the Middle East for its 2022 season finale.
The Bahrain International Circuit has been a regular stop on the WEC calendar, and its grand Prix layout features 15 turns over 5.4 kilometres. The race starts in the afternoon, but as the sky goes dark, the season concludes under the bright floodlights in the evening.
As this is an eight-hour race, there will be 150% points on offer, meaning that all championships are still wide open as a victory awards 38 points. At the same time, an additional point for the pole position is still available.
HYPERCAR
History awaits in the battle over the 2022 Hypercar driver’s championship. The crews of the #8 Toyota and #36 Alpine go into the weekend level on points, while the #7 Toyota can still catch them at a 21-point deficit with 38 points left on the table.
After yet another strong showing in Fuji, the Toyota GR010 will receive a slight reduction in power and energy per stint. In contrast, the Alpine A480 will have a minor increase in both. The Peugeot 9X8 shouldn’t be overlooked, though, as it receives a further weight decrease on top of the one it got in Fuji.
Sadly the Glickenhaus team will miss out on another race due to the comparatively high costs of the flyaway races.
LMP2
The #38 JOTA is comfortably ahead of its competitors with a 28-point gap over the #23 United Autosports entry, the largest points gap in any of the classes. The title is far from won as a catastrophic result could still easily cause the championship to slip from their hands at any moment.
In terms of pace, the JOTA team continues to look strong, but in LMP2, you can be sure that the competition will be as fierce as ever.
GTE PRO
The 2022 season finale will be the last dance for the GTE-Pro class after having served some incredible competition from the WEC’s inception ten years ago until now.
This is not the end of GTE, though, as the GTE AM class will continue for one more year with the GTE class in the European Le Mans series.
The fight over the final GTE Pro championship will undoubtedly be a heated one yet, as the #92 Porsche seeks to take home the victory that slipped from their hands at Bahrain last season.
GTE AM
All we know is that an Aston Martin will take the championship this weekend. Still, it remains to be seen whether the #33 TF Sport will be able to hold off the #98 Northwest AMR, as the gap is currently at 20 points.
The Iron Dames team will undoubtedly be one to look out for, as they have been in solid form since Monza. They recently took their first victory in the European Le Mans Series in Portimao, becoming the first all-female driver crew to do so.