Porsche has once again proven its dominance in the 2015 FIA WEC season after taking another 1-2 finish during the 6 Hours of Nurburgring. This follows their historic 1-2 finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June. Porsche leads the manufacturers standings with 184 points but shy of the lead in the drivers’ standings by 17 points away from Audi’s team of Lotterer, Fassler and Treluyer.
This was the first WEC race at the Nurburgring, yet another reason for Porsche to celebrate their much deserved home victory. The win went to the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley – the same team that finished second at Le Mans 2015. They fought back after making a long pit stop to replace their front end, a moment when the #18 sister car held the lead.
Unfortunately for the #18 car, the team was slammed with three penalties for exceeding fuel allowance. This was caused by a faulty fuel sensor resulting to a blind fuel management process. Initially the team of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas in the #18 Porsche 919 Hybrid managed to fight on even after serving the first stop-and-go penalty but after serving the second and third, they lost any chances of winning the race.
Lieb was left in the fight for second with a pack of two Audi R18s – the #7 and #8. He managed to run fast enough to secure second place while Andre Lotterer in the #7 Audi R18 e-tron passed Lucas Di Grassi in the #8 car to finish in third. The #7 car has won a podium in every race so far this season.
Toyota finished the race in fifth and sixth places with reigning champions – Anthony Davidson, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi – taking fifth in the #1 Toyota TS040 Hybrid ahead of the #2 car piloted by Stephane Sarrazin, Alex Wurz and Mike Conway. Team ByKolles were the best ranked LMP1 privateer team after both Rebellion racing cars faced challenges.
Hong Kong based team KCMG Oreca claimed the win in LMP2 category sharing the podium with G-Drive Racing who claimed second and third.
Elsewhere in LMGTE classes, Porsche was not done winning as they claimed a double podium win in GTE-Pro class with two Porsche 911 RSRs. The #91 Porsche 911 RSR of Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen crossed the line first leading the #92 sister car, both were fielded by Team Manthey. AF Corse took the final spot on this podium with the #71 Ferrari 458 Italia.
SMP Racing won in the Pro-Am class with the #72 Ferrari 458 Italia piloted by Victor Shaytar, Andrea Bertolini and Alexei Basov. Second place went to the #98 Aston Martin Racing of Mathias Lauda, Paul Dalla Lana. Completing the Pro-Am podium was the team of Rui Aguas, Francois Perrodo and Emmanuel Collard in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia.
COTA will host the next round of FIA WEC on September 19.
The team that won Le Mans did not participate in this race. They only participated in 2 races. Spa and Le Mans.
Thanks Mike, corrected now.