After another 90-minute break, the racing resumed for the final time, with 16 and a half hours remaining on the clock. That brought nightfall to the circuit at last, and the #1 car hit the front again. An entertaining battle with the #20 was broken up when the stewards hit the Coanda team with a drive-through penalty, allowing the #1 and #2 a significant lead. Remarkably, the #888 had fought back from its early race disconnect to spar with the #89 BMW for the lead.
However, disaster struck the #1 shortly after virtual sunrise. Verstappen himself suffered a disconnect from the race, followed by another as he re-joined. With the regulations only giving partial laps back in situations where multiple cars disconnect in a short period of time – as had happened 20 minutes earlier with the #20 and #23 Porsche cars – the former leader found himself now two laps down. That prompted him to retire the car, ending the race and championship challenge.
With seven hours remaining the team’s #2 car inherited the race lead and managed the pace through to the end of the race to win by 21 seconds from the #20 Porsche. That would mean Porsche won the overall series title, by 16 points from the #1 Team Redline squad. The R8G team’s victory in GTE was considerably more comfortable, taking the win by a clear lap from the #71 Team Redline BMW. That was also enough to see Redline secure the series win in class.
Race Result
LMP2
1 - Team Redline #2 - Bennett, Drugovich (P), Lulham, Rosenqvist (P) - 356 laps
2 - Porsche Coanda #20 - deJong, Guven (P), Heinrich (P), Rogers - +21 seconds
3 - AMG Team Williams #53 - Brzezinski, Canapino (P), Trogen (P), Wisniewski - +1’50
GTE
1 - R8G Esports Ferrari #888 - Andonovski, Andrews (P), Jajovski, Smolyar (P) - 323 laps
2 - BMW Team Redline #71 - Bonito, Colombo (P), Siggy, van Buren (P) - +1 lap
3 - BMW TeamBS+Competition #89 - Denes (P), Khan, Spengler (P), Terzic - +1 lap