TF Sport driver Charlie Eastwood has reflected on what has proven to be a ‘super difficult’ season trying to catch the frontrunners in the World Endurance Championship LMGT3 class thus far.
The Irishman is competing in LMGT3’s first season in the WEC having raced in the LMGTE Am class last year in what was the final season the series would use that machinery.
Eastwood comes off a successful 2023 campaign, having finished third in the European Le Mans series, second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMGTE Am class alongside Ahmad Al Harthy and Michael Dinan and winning the Asian Le Mans series with DKR Engineering.
The 28-year-old is racing the No. 81 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R with Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy in the WEC this year, but the trio currently sit 20th in the LMGT3 championship with just 11 points from the first five races.
And speaking with Sportscar365, Eastwood explained how difficult of a challenge it has proved to be to catch the ‘outliers’ at the front.
Charlie Eastwood says it is ‘super difficult’ to catch the ‘outliers’ Manthey in the WEC
So far in the LMGT3 class, the season has been dominated by the Porsche 911 GTR 3 driven by both Manthey Racing teams, particularly Manthey PureRxcing.
The Lithuanian team’s No. 92 car, shared by Bronze-rated Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler, currently lead the championship having finished on the podium in all but one race so far this season, winning in Qatar and Brazil.
The second Manthey team, German outfit Manthey EMA (No. 91), also have two victories to their name at Spa and the 24 Hours of Le Mans and sit 25 points behind the leaders.
Meanwhile, TF Sport’s No. 81 Chevrolet have a best finish of seventh at Imola, and Eastwood believes that the sheer speed of the No. 92 car’s lineup and a favourable Balance of Performance for the Porsche make the Manthey teams ‘hard to compete with.’
“Ultimately the Bronzes are the most split and it has been every year, with your Ben Keating’s and your Salih Yoluc’s [in past seasons],” he said.
“But when you have a super-fast Bronze, two fast pros and the giant that is Manthey, it is hard to compete with them.
“On the BoP side, they’ve been quite strong, which makes it super difficult because the sister [No. 91] car with a somewhat lesser lineup is always up there too.
“There just seems to be a couple of outliers at the top of the pack and it just seems that we’re not very proactive in making the pack closer.
“The middle of the pack, as we saw in Brazil with McLaren, BMW, Ferrari, Ford and ourselves, we were all within a few seconds.
“But there have been two outliers all year, which makes it pretty tough.”
TF Sport have struggled to find results so far in the WEC LMGT3 championship
2024 has proven to be a difficult season for the Chevrolet-powered TF Sport, with both cars having only scored 21 points between them in five races,
Eastwood, Andrade and van Rompuy kicked off the season by grabbing pole position for the opening round in Qatar, but retired on lap 177 of the 1812km race with a gearshift problem.
The No. 81 car has struggled for performance since then, with their best finish of seventh in Imola being followed by another retirement at Spa.
The sister No. 82 has faired little better, having not finished above eighth thus far this season and retired on lap 133 of the previous race in Brazil.