Free Practice 1 | 4th – 1:39.915 |
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Free Practice 2 | 2nd – 1:37.921 |
Free Practice 3 | 2nd – 1:36.647 |
Qualifying | 2nd – 1:36.693 |
Race | 1st – 25 points |
The Porsche Team claimed a one-two result in front of a great crowd at the fourth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the Nürburgring. The trio of Timo Bernhard (DE), Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber won the six-hour race in temperatures of more than 30 degrees Celsius. Right behind them the sister Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas (FR), Neel Jani (CH) and Marc Lieb (DE) came second. Over the weekend 62,000 people created a fantastic backdrop for the first German WEC race.
Timo started from P2 behind the sister car. During a “Full Course Yellow” he lost around ten seconds because of slow lapped cars between him and the leading car. Later a damaged nose cone disturbed the aero, which is why the team decided to stop early. After 24 laps Timo handed over to Mark, who continued with a new front. Eventually having dropped back to P6, Mark overtook the number 7 Audi on lap 40 to be second again behind the sister car. After 56 laps Mark handed over to Brendon, who took the lead on lap 64 when car number 18 was penalised. After 89 laps Timo took over the leading car to hand it to Mark again after 123 laps. During a Full Course Yellow after 144 laps Brendon jumped in again. After 175 laps Mark took over for the final stint and brought the car home to take the victory.
“Achieving the second one-two after Le Mans is great for our team,“ said Mark.“This is my first Porsche victory and, of course, it is a big day for Brendon, Timo and myself, and it is always a team effort. The two of them were awesome, we had no technical issues and took an important step by improving our performance on shorter tracks. Traffic was sometimes brutal today, but we made it.”