Valentino Rossi comes close to podium finish in WEC debut

Fourth place in the LMGT3 category for Valentino Rossi, Ahmad Al Harthy and Maxime Martin

In his first race in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), the 1812 km Qatar, Valentino Rossi cherished the dream of standing on the podium in the LMGT3 class, but in the end the 'Doctor' and his crew had to settle for fourth place, despite having completed the same number of laps as the third-place finisher in the category.

Significant result for Rossi and companions

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For Rossi and his crewmates, Omani Ahmad Al Harthy and Belgian Maxime Martin, who took turns at the wheel of the BMW M4 number 46 of Team WRT, è a prestigious result: winning the race, in the LMGT3 category, were, però the Austrian Klaus Bachler, the Nevisian (Belarusian-born) Alex Malykhin and the German Joel Sturm, driving the Porsche 911 number 92 of the Manthey PureRxcing team.

Completing the podium in the category were two Aston Martin Vantage, number 27 from the Heart of Racing Team and number 777 from D'Station Racing: Britain&#39s Ian James, Italy&#39s Daniel Mancinelli and Spain&#39s Alex Riberas took turns at the wheel of the former, while two Frenchmen, Erwan Bastard and Clement Mateu, and Denmark&#39s Marco Sorensen, exchanged places in the latter.

Hypercar, Porsche domination

In the premier category, the Hypercar, the French Kevin Estre, the German André Lotterer and the Belgian Laurens Vanthoor, who drove theNo. 6 Porsche 963 of the Porsche Penske Motorsport team, instead, took the win. Porsches also occupied the other two steps of the podium, leaving the crumbs to their rivals.

In second place, in fact, came the number 12 of the'Hertz Team Jota, driven by two Britons, Callum Ilott and Will Stevens, and FrenchmanNorman Nato; third, however, for the No. 5 Porsche Penske Motorsport car, driven alternately by the AustralianMatt Campbell, the Dane Michael Christensen and the French Frederick Marowiecki.

Ferrari in fifth and eighth place in the premier class

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The two Ferrari 499Ps finished fifth and eighth: winning a place in the top 5 were the Polish Robert Kubica, the Israeli (of Russian origin) Robert Shwartzman and the Chinese Yifei Ye in the number 83 car of the AF Corse team, while in the number 50 (part of the same team), finished the race three positions back the 39;Russian;crew composed of the Italian Antonio Fuoco, the Spaniard Miguel Molina and the Dane Nicklas Nielsen.