WEC 6 Hours of Spa – Race

Porsche 919 Hybrid finishes fourth in Spa

Stuttgart. Following the podium finish at the season opener in Silverstone, the new Porsche 919 Hybrid came fourth at the second round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC). Drivers Romain Dumas (France), Neel Jani (Switzerland) and Marc Lieb (Germany) had started with the car no. 14 from pole position for the six hour race and was the leading car for a long time. But then incidents cost time. An electric problem required a reset by Dumas while he was driving and on the final laps Jani had an extra pit stop due to a puncture.

The race day for the sister car no. 20 of Timo Bernhard (Germany), Brendon Hartley (New Zealand) and Mark Webber (Australia) was even less lucky. They had started fifth, improved immediately to third but then were hampered by technical problems and dropped back to the end of the field.

Nevertheless, the newly formed Porsche Team managed to achieve the main target for the weekend which was finishing the race with both LMP1 cars. The speed of the Porsche 919 Hybrid was convincing in Spa. For long periods of the race it was the fastest car on track. The overall fastest lap of the weekend was by Marc Lieb (1:59.887 minutes, free practice two). Neel Jani’s fastest qualifying lap (2:00.334 minutes) was the overall second fastest lap of the weekend.

“Despite the problems we had with our car we never gave up fighting and got the most out of it,” said Mark after the race. “The car runs well now but we could not exploit its full potential. The team works really hard and we are learning very quickly. Our speed is encouraging. We now have to solve the teething problems which are normal for such a new project. We knew we would be better here than in Silverstone. There we weren’t competitive. But here we were.”

Race result, 6 hrs of Spa:
1. Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi (GB/F/SUI), Toyota TS040 Hybrid, 171 laps
2.  Di Grassi/Duval/Kristensen (BRA/F/DK), Audi R18 e-tron quattro, – 1:13.926 min
3.  Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima (A/F/J), Toyota TS040 Hybrid, – 1:20.861 min
4.  Dumas/Jani/Lieb (F/SUI/GER), Porsche 919 Hybrid, 1 lap behind
5.  Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (SUI/GER/F), Audi R18 e-tron quattro, 1 lap behind
6.  Bonanomi/Albuquerque (I/POR), Audi R18 e-tron quattro, 2 laps behind
7.  Prost/Heidfeld/Beche (F/GER/SUI), Rebellion R-One-Toyota, 10 laps behind
23. Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (GER/NZ/AUS), Porsche 919 Hybrid, 23 laps behind

FIA World Endurance Championship standings after 2 of 8 rounds

Drivers standings:
1. Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi (GB/F/SUI), Toyota, 50
2. Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima (A/F/J), Toyota, 34
3. Di Grassi/Duval/Kristensen (BRA/F/DK), Audi, 18
4. Prost/Heidfeld/Beche (F/GER/SUI), Rebellion, 18
5. Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (GER/NZ/AUS), Porsche, 15,5
6. Canal/Pla/Rusinov (F/F/RUS), G-Drive, 14
7. Dumas/Jani/Lieb (F/SUI/GER), Porsche, 13
8. Lotterer/Tréluyer/Fässler (GER/F/SUI), Audi, 10

Manufacturers standings:
1. Toyota, 84
2. Porsche, 36
3. Audi, 28

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