Why no penalty was given for Porsche-Ferrari collision in WEC Austin round

“Just good, hard racing.” That was Porsche Racing president Jonathan Diuguid’s take on the controversial events early in hour five of last weekend’s Lone Star Le Mans round of the World Endurance Championship. That, of course, is what everyone wants to see in the series. Racing that is good, hard and also close. 

But was the battle between Porsche driver Kevin Estre and Ferrari’s Alessandro Pier Guidi at either end of the pitstraight at Circuit of the Americas on lap 77 just a little bit too hard or somehow not correct? That was kind of the view of Ferrari in the immediate aftermath of the six hours of wet-weather racing on Sunday.

There were no complaints about the move that Estre put on Pier Guidi to take the lead into Turn 1 as the race went green after yet another safety car, a touch between their two cars and a puncture for the red one. Rather it was the contact several hundred metres earlier that raised the hackles of the Italian manufacturer. Which is why I say they were only ‘kind of’ complaining about just how hard the racing was. Because the cars weren’t actually racing at that point. 

The racing, the battle or whatever you want to call it, can only start post-safety car when the cars cross the start/finish line, so it is understandable that Ferrari should raise questions about the little nerf Pier Guidi’s 499P Le Mans Hypercar car received from the closely-following Porsche 963 LMDh.

They argued that without that touch there would have been no Turn 1 incident, no puncture and, quite possibly, another victory for Ferrari in the WEC this season. We can assume that Pier Guidi had to momentarily get out of the gas as a result of the contact on his left rear corner: Ferrari was certainly saying that he lost momentum up the straight and it was that which allowed Estre to make his move into the first corner. 

Ferrari’s anger stemmed from the fact that the rules state that it is down to the leader to control the pace of the field once the safety car, lights off, has ducked into the pitlane. The car in front shouldn’t be receiving a tap from behind as the whole restart procedure is kicking off. That would suggest that Ferrari was correct to assume that Estre would be penalised rather than escaping with a warning.

A puncture for the championship-leading #51 Ferrari cost it the chance of victory at COTA on Sunday

Photo by: FIAWEC - DPPI

You might think it’s black and white, but it isn’t, as is so often the case in motorsport. There’s a clause in the WEC sporting regulations that talks about erratic driving behind the safety car. It would be wrong to say that Pier Guidi’s actions were that, but from where Estre was sitting they would have been unexpected. 

Pier Guidi, on the instruction of his team, took an unusual line through the final corner. The idea was to exploit a drier section of track on the inside to aid his acceleration up the straight as the race went green. That appears to have caught out Estre, who was on a more conventional line, and almost certainly explains the little bump he gave the Ferrari. 

There are any number of assumptions that have to be made here, given that race stewards don’t talk about the decisions emanating from their little room. But we can presume that Porsche put forward such a case in Estre’s defence. Successfully so. 

Procedures were correctly followed in Austin. There was a stewards’ report on the incident, whereas I’m still waiting for the relevant paperwork from the Christensen/Pier Guidi incident to be made public, if it even exists. But were the rules correctly applied? 

I’m saying that it was a pragmatic decision and probably a fair and sensible one, too. But it also raises the question of consistent enforcement. Scroll back four years to another Ferrari/Porsche clash in the WEC involving Pier Guidi and a car in which Estre was in the line-up.

The rules appeared to being made up on the hoof in the controversial closing stages of the Bahrain 8 Hours that rounded out the 2021 WEC when Pier Guidi, driving an AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE, touched the back of Michael Christensen in the Manthey-run Porsche 911 RSR in which Estre was one of the regular drivers. Porsche put in a protest on that one, an incident that effectively decided the outcome of the GTE Pro title race. It had it rejected and appealed, only to back out of what was probably an unwinnable case. 

This time in Austin, the decision of the stewards could not be protested. Lap time penalties and the like are not subject to appeal, and the same of a decision when just a warning is issued, as we now know.

Austin was Porsche's first win of WEC 2025

Photo by: Andreas Beil

It wasn’t quite ‘it’s called a motor race’ moment, a reference to Michael Masi apparently deciding at the same year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix that the Formula 1 race director was some kind of ringmaster whose job it was to create a spectacle rather than enforce the rules, but it wasn’t far away. 

No penalty for Pier Guidi, just an order to give the lead back to Christensen, only for it to be rescinded when the Porsche ducked into the pits for a splash of fuel. It had the hallmarks of Masi’s championship-deciding call a month later; snap decisions were being made in seconds, which raises the question where they were coming from: the stewards’ room or in race control?

Procedures were correctly followed in Austin. There was a stewards’ report on the incident, whereas I’m still waiting for the relevant paperwork from the Christensen/Pier Guidi incident to be made public, if it even exists. But were the rules correctly applied? 

Should the consequences of Estre’s love tap on Pier Guidi have been taken into account, was the fact that the Ferrari was on an unusual line really a mitigating factor? So many questions, and I don’t have the answers, I’m afraid. 

Consistency of rule enforcement is so important in motor racing. But, as I said, nothing is black and white in our sport. Not quite.

Stewarding decisions are often subjective, as was the case in WEC's Austin round last weekend

Photo by: James Moy Photography via Getty Images