Category: WEC

The well anticipated 6 Hours of Shanghai lived to the expectations of the fans of the FIA World Endurance Championship after the race in Fuji that saw strong commitment from Toyota finally pay dividends to achieve the win. If anything else Toyota has been truly unlucky as they have suffered harshly the realities of Motorsports in the worst scenarios, their engine failure in the last lap of the 24 Hours of Le Mans was a heart breaking moment for all, even their competitors. Something is to admire from the Japanese manufacturer and that is their fighting spirit, they have shown strong pace and reliability and that showed again in Shanghai where they put strong pressure on the Porsches all the way through the 6 hours and except for two punctures that forced them into the pits, they could have won it.  Porsche was fastest in Qualifying but in race pace with fresh tires they had similar rhythm but on older tires Toyota had stronger pace and they were able to double stint without dropping performance which is how they won in Fuji.

The Constructor’s Championship was won by Porsche after their 1st – 4th place finish positions in Shanghai but the Driver’s Championship is still open thanks to the 2nd-3rd of Toyota finishing ahead of the Championship leader, the No. 2 Porsche. It will go down to Bahrain, 17 points in favor of Lieb/Jani/Dumas over Kobayashi/Conway/Sarrazin with 26 points at play, this means that they would have to get the pole point and win the race and the No. 2 Porsche finish 6th or since there are only 6 cars in the class, have the car not finish the race.  Another result would be for them to finish 2nd and the Porsche not finish the race.. Seems a bit difficult but it’s still possible.

Audi on the other hand did not look like themselves at Shanghai, re fueling problems for one car, contact between themselves forced lengthy repairs in pits for the other, Lotterer complaining of lack of pace and grip, it’s an obvious result of the recent announcement that the brand will leave the sport with Bahrain being the last race after 18 years. Fans have been yelling in anger, they simply do not cope with the idea of Audi quitting the sport in such a cold manner but that’s another reality in Motorsports, companies make decisions and sometimes they are strongly influenced by the business people for whom passion does not have representation in the numbers…

In the LMP1 class it was the Bykolles Racing Team who finally managed their first win over the Rebellion Team who faced certain problems and were hunting down the No. 4 car but had a small fire that made them loose more laps in pits. The Championship has been won by the Rebellion Team already but the fight is for the honor now.

LMP2 has been seriously competitive this year with several cars very well matched on pace but with their 4th place finish in Shanghai it was the No. 36 of Signatech Alpine Team that sealed the title. 4 wins and specially the double points and win at Le Mans that gave them the leverage to take the title with one race still remaining in the Championship. The No. 43 of RGR Sport by Morand did not have the best start with Bruno Senna loosing positions after avoiding the incident of the No. 44 Manor on the first lap, this proved to be a big handicap since he simply could not find a way back through the field in the first half of the race but by being constant and having a very good response at the pits, the team managed to finish 3rd in front of their title rival, unfortunately, this didn’t help in them keeping their title hopes alive.. The win went to car No. 26 of G-Drive Racing which consolidated them in the top 3 positions 12 points behind RGR so the fight for the second position is still open between these two teams going to Bahrain. The 2nd place of the race went to Extreme Speed Racing’s No. 30 with extraordinary drives and no mistakes from its three drivers.

In GTE PRO, it was a very good day for the boys of Ford Chip Ganassi Europe making the 1-2 and with ahead of one of the AF Course Ferraris taking away a bunch of points in the Championship which now sets them in second place just 2 points behind the Aston Martin Team while only 12 points separate the Aston, the two Fords and the Ferrari in the fight that will go down to the wire in Bahrain.

GTE AM was won by Aston Martin, ahead of AF Course who lead the Championship with a 25 point advantage with 26 points still in play, so mathematically speaking, it’s still possible for the Aston Martin to fight the title. The fight for the point of the Pole Position will be crucial in Bahrain, if the Ferrari gets pole, that would seal their title but if they don’t it could be a completely different story. Third place in the race went to the KCMG Team in their Porsche which puts them 4th in the standings behind the Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche.

The last race of the Championship will be held on November 19th, it’s a 6 hour race and it will be the last for Audi..

 

The World Endurance Championship has certainly grown significantly in the last few years, Audi has been a stepping stone for that. The fight with Peugeot, Toyota and more recently Porsche has brought Audi a lot of difficult challenges but at the same time, success. The amount of followers all over the world has increased as well so this becomes a sad day for many as Audi has announced it will not compete beginning next year. Their commitment to the Championship was not just for the sport itself, their commitment is in the development of new technologies for their road cars and they will now shift their focus into the newer series the Formula E Championship which consists of fully electric cars racing all over the world as well.

No further news have been provided as to the drivers, the DTM commitment remains unchanged and the World RX apparently will grow but it has been said that the 300+ employees for the WEC will continue to work for Audi some in their road car development and some in the Formula E championship.

Audi will certainly be missed at the WEC and more so at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

If it had been a 3 hour race, Audi would have won it in shining colors, unfortunately for them, it was a 6 hour race and luck was not on their side tonight. The Audi No. 8 had a stall that took away by half the lead it had over third place and then the leading Audi No. 7 was clipped when trying to pass the Ford GT No. 66 on turn 18 both cars spinning out of control with the Audi hitting the barrier hard and not being able to return by its own means Race Control brought out a Full Course Yellow. Eventually the Audi made it back heavily damaged but came back 6 laps behind the leaders.  It was a hard hit to take by Audi but they kept on fighting with the No. 8 which hat to recover from the positions it lost due to the Yellow flag as well and finished 2nd in the end behind the No. 1 Porsche and just over 2 seconds ahead of an inspired Toyota Team with the No. 6 car in the hands of Sarrazin.

In LMP2 was as hard as predicted, positions shuffled around and specially for car No. 36 from Signatech Alpine who had to overcome a peculiar problem when they had an issue with the Master Switch of their car at turn 4, the driver had to get out of the car, fit it correctly and then go back in, put the seat belt back on and managed to continue to finish 1st in the class. Second place went to car No. 43 from RGR Sport by Morand  and 3rd place went to car No. 26 from G-Drive Racing. Manor’s No. 44 had suspension failure and did not finish and car No. 42 from Strakka Racing could not finish as well.

LMGTE Pro was won by the No. 95 Aston Martin 11 seconds clear of AF Corse Ferrari No. 51 and the No. 71. LMGTE Am was also won by an Aston Martin, the No. 98 with a commanding lead over car No. 78, the KCMG Porsche of over 1 minute. Third place was car No. 50, the Corvette from Labre Competition. Next race will be at Fuji, 3 races are still left in the fight for the Championship.

Audi certainly started at full throttle and have established a clear advantage of over 40 seconds toward the third placed Porsche. One full course yellow saw the LMP1 H cars all go into the pits, Toyota has kept Porsche under pressure since the start of the race and double stinting the tires put them briefly in front of one of them. Exactly at one minute from the 3 hour mark the No. 86 Gulf Racing Porsche had an off at turn 1 while exiting the pit lane, got stock in the gravel trap and caused the second full course yellow that allowed several cars to stop. At this point positions are as follows:

 

Audi managed to get pole in a very difficult and exciting session that saw many teams loose their lap times due to exceeding the track limits on several turns but specially at turn 9 and 19. Two main events are taking place this weekend, one is the WeatherTec SportsCar Championship and the other is the World Endurance Championship and both have different regulations for the public to observe, in the WeatherTec, cars are allowed to go over the track limits which is more common to see at turn 19 but in the WEC track limits must be respected. In race trim cars that exceed track limits will be warned and if they continue to do it they will be sanctioned which could clearly cost the race. For qualifying, the lap times in which they exceeded the track limits were deleted.

You have to take into consideration that these were 20 minute qualifying sessions in which 2 drivers must set a time since the average lap time defines the grid position, the cars take about 1 minute 47 seconds per lap at their fastest speed in LMP1, the time is about 1 minute 55 seconds in LMP2 and in the LMGTE Pro and Am categories the times round little over the 2 minutes. Coming out of the pits and going into the pits mean about 6 minutes lost including the beginning of the session and the driver change plus the time they take to change drivers.  This leaves the drivers with around 13 minutes to set their times, meaning about 2 or 3 good laps at the most. Exceeding track limits in one lap means loosing it which seriously affected the outcome of the qualifying sessions today.

In the LMGTE Pro class the fastest combination of lap times set the No. 95 Aston Martin of N. Thiim and M. Sorensen in pole with a time of 2:04.610 beating the AF Corse Ferrari No. 71 of D. Rigon and S. Bird by 0.042 seconds. Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK managed the 3rd grid position less than 2 tenths of a second from pole ith car No. 66 driven by S. Mücke and O. Pla. (Positions LMGTE Pro: 95/71/66/51/97/67/77)

In the LMGTE Am Class it was P. Dalla Lana and P. Lamy in the Aston Martin No. 98 who set the parameter with a time of 2:07.683. 2nd place went to the Porsche of the Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Team No. 88 driven by K. Al Qubaisi, D. Heinemeier Hansson and K. Estre and third was for the Porsche of KCMG No. 78 driven by C. Ried, W. Henzler and J. Camathias.  (Positions LMGTE Am: 98/88/78/86/83/50)

For the second session, in LMP1-H it was really tricky as it had been for the previous one with several drivers loosing their lap times having to make an extra lap but in LMP1, even though all the teams managed to complete the minimum of one lap per driver, it was hard to post especially good times after they lost one lap.  This added extra pressure when Porsche decided not to change tires in order to save a set for the race, Audi got the better hand again but this time with Fässler and Lotterer in the No. 7 car who set an average of 1:45.842.  The No. 8 Audi driven by Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis was 0.141 seconds behind followed by the No. 1 Porsche of T. Bernhard, M. Webber and B. Hartley half a second behind.  An excellent effort by Toyota, specially by Kobayashi got them 4th place ahead of the second Porsche and the sister Toyota. Rebellion Racing’s No. 13 will lead the way from the Bykolles Racing Team No. 4.

LMP2 teams had a difficult time as well trying to cope with track limits, to the point that car No. 26 of G-Drive Racing could not complete the lap of Brundle after he exceeded the track on each try, this puts them last on the grid with a lot of ground to make up during the race. Pole in this class went to car No. 36 of G. Menezes, N. LaPierre and S. Richelmi fo Team Signatech Alpine with a time of 1:555.892.  2nd place went to Manor’s No. 44 of M. Rao, R. Bradley and R. Merhi and third place was for No. 43 of R. Gonzalez, F. Albuquerque and B. Senna in the RGR Sport by Morand car.  (Positions LMP2: 36/44/43/42/35/37/31/27/30/26)

Teams play a lot of strategies trying to obtain the best result possible, the fight will include pit stops, tire stints, driver changes and traffic. Tire wear may be tricky due to the changes in temperature due to the time the race starts (5pm local time) which is basically the high temperature peak time and then as it cools down as the night goes through. Remember it’s 6 hours of racing and we expect hard racing among each category.

Lap times keep dropping but the No. 8 Audi has kept on improving steadily from a 1:48.453 to a 1:45.719. Porsche follows closely just above 3 tenths of a second behind with car No. 1 Driven by Bernhard, Webber and Hartley and car No. 2 driven by Dumas, Jani and Lieb jus 0.029 behind their team mates. The Audi No. 7 finished 4th with Fässler, Lotterer and Tréluyer just over half a second from their team mates in first place.

Toyota has kept working hard, also improving bit by bit, Davidson, Buemi and Nakajima are just over 1 second from the fastest time in car No. 5 followed by team mates Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi in car No. 6.

 

In LMP2, the story remains the same, the field is very close and positions are shuffling in each practice session with the times tumbling down as well from the 1:57 to 1:55. Fastest car so far has been the one from Manor, No. 44, followed by car No. 43 from RGR Sport by Morand by just 0.045 seconds and another 2 tenths behind car No. 26 from G-Drive Racing.  This is going to be a very, very tough battle not only for pole but during the 6 hours of the race tomorrow where strategy and staying away from trouble will be key factors in getting good results in the end. Just over 2 seconds confine the 10 car field with very good drivers that will go all for all in Qualifying.

The LMGTE Pro category has also evolved into faster times over 2 seconds from practice one in which the No. 95 Aston Martin Vantage is leading the way by 0.805 seconds from team mates in car No. 97. Car No. 51, the Ferrari 488 GTE from AF Corse is 1 second from the fastest car. In LMGTE Am it’s car No. 88, the Porsche 911 RSR from Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing, that dominated the field, followed closely by the No. 98 Aston Martin  and the No. 50 Corvette from Larbre Competition.

Qualifying will take place Friday at 5:45pm Local Time for the LMGTE Pro and AM classes (20 minute Session) and at 6:15pm for the LMP1/P2 classes (20 minute Session). Remember that in WEC the fastest time is determined by the average of time between the fastest two drivers that participate in the session so there will be no room for mistakes, each driver will have around 2 laps only to make their fastest time.

Just where they left in Mexico, the battle between Audi and Porsche continued today at Circuit Of The Americas with the Audi R18 No. 8 of Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis managed to put a great lap at the end of the session to clinch the fastest time just 0.047 seconds over the Porsche 919 Hybrid No. 2 of Dumas, Jani and Lieb. The weather cooperated a lot, it was a beautiful day where the teams had to cope with a lot of heat, track temperature rounded above the 44 Centigrade mark while the humidity was high as well. The 2nd Audi No. 7 finished 3rd followed by the second Porsche, car No. 1 and then the two Toyotas who suffer a bit in higher temperatures but still did a solid run to finish within 1.2 seconds of the best time in the 3.4 mile racetrack.

LMP1 was led by car No. 13 of the Rebellion Racing Team followed by the No. 4 of Bykolles Racing Team with over 1 and a half a second of difference. In LMP2 the battle is consistent and G-Drive Racing put the Nissan powered Oreca on top 0.6 seconds ahead of Baxi DC Racing Alpine’s No. 35. Manor’s No. 44 finished 3rd ahead of the Signature Alpine No. 36 and Extreme Speed Motorsports No. 31.

In LMGTE Pro, the leader so far is Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK’s No. 66 just 0.103 ahead of Feraris AF Corsa No. 51 and No. 71. Car No. 50, the Chevrolet Corvette of Larbre Competition led the way from the Porsche No. 88 of Team Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing and Porsche No. 86 of Gulf Racing.

Sirverstone was definitely a proper introduction to what promises to be a very exciting Championship this year and Audi had managed to beat Porsche favorites who dominated every session previous the Qualifying and the race itself suffering from a crash with the No. 1 car.

Audi showed its thoroughbred winning colors with its drivers and team doing a fantastic job to put up a fight to the remaining Porsche after they had also lost the second Audi due to Hybrid issues.  Luck had seemed to play in Audi’s favor when the Porsche developed a slow puncture and had to make an extra stop to change two tires and be able to go to the finish in 2nd place, too far to challenge the Audi anymore.

Luck stroke back however, this time benefiting Porsche, after the stewards confirmed the front end plate of the No. 7 Audi did not have the required thickness thus excluding the car from the results.  Porsche scored 25 points but it is Toyota who leads the Championship after they finished 2nd and 6th with 33 points, Audi will keep 1 point for the pole.

Toyota did not shine during the 6 hour race since their aerodynamic package had a low down force set up in readiness for the 24 Hour of Le Mans. Their times though were not bad at all, not loosing that much and with the 3rd place just over a minute from the leader in the end. They did not run into technical issues as did Audi either, since the reason for their sixth place was a puncture on the right rear tire having to do a whole lap that destroyed the bodywork which took over 20 minutes to fix in their garage.

Next race is in Belgium, in the famous Spa-Franco Champs circuit, for another 6 hour race where without a doubt Audi will want to win.