WEC champs earn redemption in Germany

 

The title-winning Porsche crew have arrested a frustrating first half of the World Endurance Championship by winning the 6 Hours of the Nurburgring.

It took four races into the WEC season for Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard to bounce back and reclaim the form which saw it dominate in 2015.

The #1 Porsche 919 had an enthralling dice with Audi in the opening hours after the Ingolstadt maker saw its two R18 e-tron quattro diesels trade the lead.

However in the end the #1 Porsche saluted when time was called, 53.7s ahead of the #8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis.

The #7 Audi shared by Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer completed the podium.

Porsche’s title leading #2 machine of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas was 1:37s behind in fourth place after receiving a drive through penalty for avoidable contact with a backmarker.

With Bernhard at the wheel, the #1 Porsche overcame a puncture early in proceedings.

Webber paid tribute to the mechanics on the #1 machine after repeating their win at the celebrated German circuit last year.

“It was an exceptional performance against strong competition,” Webber said.

“This is the day of the mechanics of car number 1 who had some tough times recently and it is good points for the constructors’ championship.”

The #5 Toyota TS050 of Kazuki Nakajima, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi was fifth ahead of the #6 Toyota of Stephane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.

There was an intense battle between Lotterer and Jani late in the race which saw the #2 Porsche ultimately come in for repairs to its damaged rear wing.

LMP2 honours were taken by Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Gustavo Menezes in the Signatech Alpine which realised a third consecutive victory for the crew.

In GTE Pro, the AF Corse Ferrari 488 of Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado with another AF Corse 488 driven by Davide Rigon and Sam Bird claiming second.

The Nicki Thiim and Marcos Sorensen Aston Martin Vantage was in charge for a long period of proceedings but ultimately paid a heavy price in a green flag pit stop.

The GTE AM honours went to Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana in the Aston Martin Vantage.

A post-race sequel saw  the customer KCMG Porsche 911 RSR driven by Christian Ried, Wolf Henzler and Joel Camanthias stripped of second place in the class after a ride height breach.

Subsequently the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GT moves up to second in the class.

See below full results for the Nurburgring 6 Hour

Points standings

1 Romain Dumas 106 1 Marc Lieb 106 1 Neel Jani 106 2 Oliver Jarvis 73 2 Loic Duval 73 2 Lucas di Grassi 73 3 Kamui Kobayashi 62 3 Stephane Sarrazin 62 3 Mike Conway 62 4 Marcel Fassler 51 4 Andre Lotterer 51 5 Dominik Kraihamer 36 5 Matheo Tuscher 36 5 Alexandre Imperatori 36 6 Benoit Treluyer 35 7 Stephane Richelmi 34 7 Gustavo Menezes 34 7 Nicolas Lapierre 34 8 Mark Webber 28.5 8 Brendon Hartley 28.5 8 Timo Bernhard 28.5 9 Nicolas Prost 25.5 9 Nick Heidfeld 25.5 10 Nelson Piquet Jr. 25 11 Rene Rast 22.5 11 Roman Rusinov 22.5 12 Will Stevens 16.5 13 Filipe Albuquerque 14 13 Bruno Senna 14 13 Ricardo Gonzalez 14 14 Ryan Dalziel 14 14 Luis Derani 14 15 Vitaly Petrov 13.5 15 Kirill Ladygin 13.5 15 Victor Shaytar 13.5 17 Anthony Davidson 11 17 Kazuki Nakajima 11 17 Sebastien Buemi 11 18 Nick Leventis 10.5 18 Jonny Kane 10.5 19 Danny Watts 10 20 James Rossiter 8.5 20 Simon Trummer 8.5 20 Oliver Webb 8.5 21 Nathanael Berthon 6.5 22 Maurizio Mediani 5 22 Nicolas Minassian 5 23 Mikhail Aleshin 4 24 Richard Bradley 3 24 Matt Rao 3 24 Roberto Merhi 3 25 Johannes van Overbeek 2.5 25 Ed Brown 2.5 25 Scott Sharp 2.5 26 David Cheng 1 26 Nelson Panciatici 1 26 Ho-Pin Tung 1 27 Tor Graves 1 28 Chris Cumming 1 29 James Jakes 0.5 30 Giedo van der Garde 0.5 30 Simon Dolan 0.5 30 Jake Dennis 0.5 31 Lewis Williamson 0.5 32 Matt Howson 0.5 32 Antonio Pizzonia 0.5 33 Mathias Beche 0.5 34 Devi Markozov 0 35 Pierre Kaffer 0 36 Alex Brundle 0