Trackside: FIA WEC 4 hours of Silverstone 2019

Trackside: FIA WEC 4 Hours of Silverstone 2019 – Gallery and Video

As I’m sure some are aware the 8th season of the FIA WEC season has started down at Silverstone. Once again we were there to witness the action. Although a couple more manufacturers have left the fray. The racing is still as frantic as it has been over the last few seasons. The Silverstone weekend is also one that’s packed with plenty of on track action. As the ELMS runs on the Saturday with the WEC on the Sunday.

The Race

The 4 hour race started with a 1 minute standing silence for the unfortunate loss of Anthoine Hubert in the Spa F2 race the day before. Once the action got underway though, there were no accidents on the first corner. Which was a little surprising as last year, a few cars ended up flying off the circuit. It was a little disappointing to see the Ginetta LMP1 cars fall back behind the LMP2’s at the start. Though they don’t seem to be able to match the Rebellion or Toyota’s on pace, they did make there way back past the LMP2’s after a few laps. What coursed them to fall back like they did, we could not tell from the grandstand.

Within the first hour, GTE looked to be going the way of the Aston Martins (Un-ashamed bias) with them gaining a 1-2 in the GTE Pro race. Silverstone been Silverstone though, rain got thrown into the mix after about an hour of racing. Lucky for us, we were on the bus going to Maggots and Becketts so missed the 15-20 minute downpour. Once back beside the circuit, all had changed, the wet weather had played havoc with the field. Then right in front of us was the #5 Ginetta. Taking out 3^rd in GTE Pro #71 Ferrari. Which resulted in the safety car.

From there we moved on back around the circuit, and kind of lost track of the race in LMP2 and in the GT’s. It was not until we had 30 minutes to go till, we got back into the grandstand, and found out what the positions were. Toyota 1-2 in LMP1, Cool Racing leading LMP2, Porsche having a 1-2 in GTE Pro, and AF Corse Ferrari in GTE AM.

All in all, though, I prefer the 6 hour WEC events to this 4 hour derivative. But the action on track was still top-notch and we still left after watching a great race.