Toyota won the FIA WEC 6 Hours of Shanghai today with a magnificent 1-2 finish extending their championship lead to 42 points. The No.8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi crossed the finish line first and 1m12s ahead of their sister No.7 car of Alex Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Kazuki Nakajima.
Porsche took the final spot on the podium with the No.14 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani. This was their maiden podium win of the season. As for Toyota, their luck came to pass during an early safety car period where they refuelled both cars. This ensured that they finished the race with only five scheduled stops. Audi was not lucky in China and again they missed out on the podium today. But they did their best by finishing in fourth and fifth places with the No.2 and No.1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro cars.
The No.20 Porsche 919 Hybrid which had an early lead over its sister car finished in sixth place. Meanwhile, G-Drive Racing won in the LMP2 class in the hands of Olivier Pla, Roman Rusinov and Julien Canal. The interesting GT classes had action rolling again today with Porsche and Aston Martin dominating over Ferrari.
In the LMGTE-Pro, it was Porsche Team Manthey that claimed a double win by clinching a 1-2 finish with the No.92 and No.91 Porsche 911 RSR. GT Drivers’ Championship leaders Gimmi Bruni and Toni Vilander in the No.51 AF Corse were involved in an accident with the No.47 KCMG LMP2 car forcing them into retirement. That ended Ferrari’s hopes of taking the win, nevertheless the No.71 AF Corse Ferrari of Davide Rigon and James Calado took third in this class.
In the LMGTE-Am class there was also a double win case scenario with Aston Martin shining flawlessly. Firstly, pole sitter Stefan Mücke in the No.97 Aston Martin V8 Vantage had led the race during the first 4 hours but retired. All was not lost for Aston Martin as the No.98 V8 Vantage of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard went ahead to take the win. It was followed by another Aston Martin of Kristian Poulsen and David Heinemeier who took second. Ferrari took third in this class thanks to the No.90 8Star Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia of Gianluca Roda, Paolo Ruberti and Matteo Cressoni.
The next FIA WEC race will be the 6 Hours of Bahrain on 15th November.
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