Audi topples Porsche as Evans wins LMP2

Audi has prevailed following a fierce battle to deny Porsche victory in a record-breaking Round 2 of the World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps.

Benoit Treluyer guided the #7 Audi R18 home after a thrilling duel that saw the Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas #18 Porsche finish 13.4s adrift in second place.

The pole-sitting #17 Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley finished third, a result which looked a longshot after the team received a penalty and lost considerable time in the pits with suspension problems.

For Treluyer and his crew of Marc Fassler and Andre Lotterer it was back-to-back victories after their opening round win at Silverstone last month.

“It was amazing race again. We had a really good fight with Porsche and the team did a great job,”  Treluyer said.

Benefitting by less than 10 minutes of yellow flag running, the event saw 1232km logged, the greatest distance achieved in a 6 Hour race in the world.

Felipe Albuquerque, Marco Bonanomi and Rene Rast were fourth in the third Audi R18 e-tron quattro ahead of the Toyota TS040 of Alex Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway.

The third Porsche 919 Hybrid of Nico Hulkenberg, Earl Bamber and Nick Tandy was sixth with the #8 Audi seventh after Oliver Jarvis speared into the barriers in the closing minutes.

Toyota’s world champion line-up of Anthony Davidson and Sebastian Buemi were eighth.

In LMP2, Mitch Evans took a starring role in the winning effort of the Jota Sport wildcard entry.

Sharing the #38 Gibson Nissan with Harry Tincknell and Simon Dolan, GP2 racer Evans put in a sterling performance to overcome a jump start penalty and defeat established prototype starts in his WEC debut.

Aston Martin Racing, the class of the field in qualifying, landed both the LMGTE Pro and Am classes with the #99 and #98 Vantage V8s respectively.

The #99 saw Richie Stanaway join his Kiwi countryman Evans as a class winner with the Aston he was sharing with Fernando Rees and Alex MacDowell winning its maiden WEC event.

Full Spa 6 Hour result:

1	M.Fässler/A.Lotterer/B.Tréluyer	Audi	176	6:01:08.896
2	R.Dumas/N.Jani/M.Lieb	Porsche	176	13.424s
3	T.Bernhard/M.Webber/B.Hartley	Porsche	175	1 Lap
4	F.Albuquerque/M.Bonanomi/R.Rast	Audi	174	2 Laps
5	A.Wurz/S.Sarrazin/M.Conway	Toyota	173	3 Laps
6	N.Hülkenberg/E.Bamber/N.Tandy	Porsche	173	3 Laps
7	L.di Grassi/L.Duval/O.Jarvis	Audi	168	8 Laps
8	A.Davidson/S.Buemi/K.Nakajima	Toyota	162	14 Laps
9	S.Dolan/M.Evans/H.Tincknell	Gibson/Nissan	161	15 Laps
10	G.Yacamán/L.Derani/R.González	Ligier/Nissan	160	16 Laps
11	P.Ragues/O.Webb/Z.Amberg	Morgan/SARD	159	17 Laps
12	M.Howson/R.Bradley/N.Lapierre	ORECA/Nissan	159	17 Laps
13	N.Panciatici/P-L.Chatin/V.Capillaire	Alpine/Nissan	159	17 Laps
14	N.Leventis/D.Watts/J.Kane	Dome/Nissan	156	20 Laps
15	J.Nicolet/J-M.Merlin/E.Maris	Ligier/Nissan	152	24 Laps
16	A.MacDowall/F.Rees/R.Stanaway	Aston Martin	151	25 Laps
17	F.Makowiecki/R.Lietz	Porsche	151	25 Laps
18	S.Müller/K.Estre	Porsche	151	25 Laps
19	G.Bruni/T.Vilander	Ferrari	151	25 Laps
20	D.Turner/S.Mücke/R.Bell	Aston Martin	150	26 Laps
21	C.Nygaard/M.Sørensen/J.Adam	Aston Martin	150	26 Laps
22	D.Rigon/J.Calado	Ferrari	150	26 Laps
23	E.Brown/J.van Overbeek/J.Fogarty	Ligier/HPD	149	27 Laps
24	P.D.Lana/P.Lamy/M.Lauda	Aston Martin	148	28 Laps
25	F.Perrodo/E.Collard/R.Águas	Ferrari	148	28 Laps
26	V.Shaitar/A.Bertolini/A.Basov	Ferrari	147	29 Laps
27	C.Ried/K.Al Qubaisi/K.Bachler	Porsche	146	30 Laps
28	P.Dempsey/P.Long/M.Seefried	Porsche	145	31 Laps
29	F.Castellacci/R.Goethe/S.Hall	Aston Martin	138	38 Laps
30	S.Sharp/R.Dalziel/D.Hansson	Ligier/HPD	134	42 Laps
31	R.Rusinov/J.Canal/S.Bird	Ligier/Nissan	124	52 Laps
–	D.Cameron/M.Griffin/A.Mortimer	Ferrari	128	Retirement
–	G.Roda/P.Ruberti/K.Poulsen	Chevrolet	61	Retirement
–	S.Trummer/V.Liuzzi/C.Klien	CLM/AER	46	Retirement

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