Stephane Mucke slotting into 2nd and third positions – Mucke in particular having his first time deleted due to an infringement of track limits. Mucke would eventually usurp his team mate to take second behind the number 71 Ferrari with Rigon and Sam Bird.
Thomas Flohr was an able back-up the Ferrari stable in GTE Am only to lose top spot to Christian Ried in the number 77 Dempsey Proton Porsche. However, it was the Mathias Lauda/Paul Dalla Lana/Pedro Lamy combination that stole pole in the dying stages of qualifying – Lamy’s 15th pole of his WEC career.
Race
Lotterer got the early jump, but was challenged early by an overambitious Nicolas Lapierre who locked up massively into turn one and was already halfway to France before he could pull it up again. Team mate almost followed suit and allowed Lotterer to skip away to a 1.5 second lead.
With tyres yet up to temperature, drivers were having to lift at the bottom of Eau Rogue to save compression and hence bottoming out, however this was compounded due to cooler temperatures during qualifying having compelled Porsche – feeling they had more rear grip to play with – to move their aero forward. This strategy appeared to be hurting the German squad on the warmer Saturday, with their drivers complaining with a very pointy front end.
As Lotterer began to struggle with grip, Mike Conway made his move for the lead and was soon followed by Buemi. Lotterer soon pitted to change their strategy whilst the balance was falling team mate
Hartley’s way.
In LMP2 Rusinov and Dumas were battling for the lead with Bruno Senna also joining the party – forcing Dumas wide and down the pecking order - Dumas later complaining of traction control issues in the Signatech Alpine.
Davide Rigon and Pedro Lamy made hay early in GTE Pro and Am respectively, each
building a handy lead whilst the rest of the GT field made their own arrangements. Lamy had initially been under investigation for his pre-start procedure and would eventually incur a 10 second penalty to be added onto their next pit-stop, effectively handing the early lead to the number 77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche.
Harry Tincknell however was having a much harder time with the number 76 Ford GT grinding to a halt out of Eau Rogue and requiring a complete reset to reboot the electrical system. It was to be a long and arduous remaining five hours for the Chip Ganassi Racing squad. This left Pier Guidi and Sam Bird to play with Olivier Pla side by side through Eau Rogue and eventually both Ferrari’s making contact at the end of Raidillon and opening the door for the Ford.
With four hours remaining, Porsche decided to reach into their bag of tricks by pitting the number 2 car after just a six lap stint on their last set of tyres after a puncture effectively putting the team on a different fuel and tyre strategy to the rest of the LMP1 field and potentially forcing Toyota to second guess themselves.
Hartley believed the opposition had gambled on tyre strategy expecting the rain to come as the race began to come back to Porsche with cooler temperatures began to come into play. A spin for Nick Foster in the number 86 Gulf Porsche however rendered the Australian stranded on the front straight and bringing out a full course yellow. By that stage the number 7 Toyota had pitted with the rest of the major players following suit.
The status quo ruled for somewhat two hours with Porsche beginning to turn the screws on Toyota and not seemingly needing to change tyres. A cloud fell on the strategy however when Brendon Hartley sent former team mate Roman Dumas’s number 36 Signatech Alpine into a spin near the bus stop. The contact necessitated a new nose and penalty for Hartley, but more importantly an open goal for Porsche.
The mistake was costly, however with both Toyotas requiring more fuel, Hartley inherited the lead with 20 minutes remaining. It was going to be THAT close with Buemi pushing Hartley to use his full fuel allocation with 1.3 seconds between them.
But Porsche blinked, with Hartley eventually putting and handing the Toyotas their 1-2 finish, with Sebastien Buemi leading home a fast-closing Kamui Kobayashi and the number 2 Porsche of Brendon Hartley. Kobayashi made a last-chance dive at Buemi on the final lap but a Rebellion backmarker scuppered his efforts. Andre Lotterer brought up fourth in the number 1 Porsche with Lapierre getting in some good miles in before Le Mans in the number third TS050.
"Number seven were the faster car today, so they are the real winners" said a magnanimous Buemi. "We got lucky with the safety car".
ByKolles savoured was their strongest performance in a long while, finishing sixth outright and one spot ahead of the winning LMP2 G-Drive entry of Alex Lynn, Romain Rusinov and Pierre Thiriet. It was a hotly contested battle in the second-tier LMP category, with Bruno Senna and Silverstone winner Ho Ping Tung taking the final podium positions.
Sam Bird and Davide Rigon capitalised on their imperious form to take GTE Pro honours ahead of the AF Corse sister car of Calado and Guidi while Lamy and Paul Dalla Lana led home the GTE Am field ahead of the number 77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche and number 28 Clearwater Racing Ferrari.
Images: FIA WEC/Adrenal Media
Images: FIA WEC/Adrenal Media