Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley finally took their maiden group WEC victory at the Nurburgring, leading home a dominant Porsche 1-2.
62,000 WEC fans enjoyed perfect weather as they watched Porsche take a commanding 1-2 finish in the LMP1 and LMGTE Pro classes.
The #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid had an early scare after having to replace a front nose when their splitter was damaged during Timo Bernhard’s stint. The Bernhard/Webber/Hartley combination immediately found more pace and took the mantle after the sister #18 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas lost time when three penalties; served for exceeding the fuel flow allowance on the car.
An engine sensor that controls the fuel flow had failed on the No.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid. Porsche had not used the most recent homologated fuel-flow sensor that thwarted Audi’s race at Le Mans and appeared to be paying the same penalty despite the #17 car experiencing a clean run.
“Achieving the second one-two after Le Mans is great for our team. 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”"said Webber.
“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.”
After emerging from his first penalty, Marc Lieb engaged in a bit of wheel-banging with Webber, which briefly saw the cars touching at turn two and crank Wolfgang Hatz’s blood pressure up a few notches. However, the two longer penalties, 30-seconds and 60-seconds respectively, eventually saw the #18 have to settle for second.
Neel Jani saw off the advances of both of the Audi R18 etron quattro’s in during final hour, while Lotterer eventually slipped by Di Grassi for the final podium position during the dying moments; keeping in-tact #7’s podium record in 2015.
“We’d have liked to have battled for victory in our home race in front of a large crowd as we did at the beginning of the season,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “But we had to accept that Porsche were stronger today. In the standings, our drivers have maintained a remarkable advantage. This means we can expect a thrilling second half of the season.”
Toyota Racing finished its home race in fifth and sixth positions after a clean run to the chequered flag. The reigning champions – Anthony Davidson, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi in the No.1 Toyota TS 040 headed home the No.2 crew of Stephane Sarrazin, Alex Wurz and Mike Conway.
Race - 6 Hours of Nurburgring