Superior brake parts cleanerSuperior brake parts cleaner

WEC: Toyota wins rain shortened Silverstone 6 Hours

Sportscar365

Sportscar36511:02am 21 April 2014

toyota8

Toyota rung in the new era of the FIA World Endurance Championship with a dominant 1-2 victory in Sunday’s rain-shortened Six Hours of Silverstone.

A downpour in the final hour saw the second safety car period of the race, which turned into a red flag with 26 minutes to go.

The race did not resume due excess standing water around the 3.6-mile circuit, giving the win to the No. 8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Nicolas Lapierre.

Despite the early end, it was clearly Toyota’s day, which dominated from the onset.

Pole-sitter Alex Wurz led from the green but briefly lost the top spot to the No. 2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of Andre Lotterer, prior to the first spout of rain halfway through the opening hour.

The decisive move of the race came shortly after, when Toyota split its strategy, putting Wurz on wets and Buemi on intermediates during the changing conditions.

Buemi’s Toyota shined on the drying track, with the former Torro Rosso F1 driver managing to gain more than 20 seconds on a single lap over a struggling Lotterer to take the lead late in the opening hour

With a one minute-plus gap over the sister Toyota, largely due to the different tire strategy, it was clear sailing for the No. 8 crew, which cruised to a one-lap victory over the No. 7 TS040 of Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Kaz Nakajima.

Defending FIA WEC champions Audi had a race to forget, with both of its new R18 e-tron quattros crashing out, marking the first time since Petit Le Mans in 2011 that the German manufacturer didn’t get a car to the finish.

Lucas Di Grassi slammed into the barriers in the opening hour under the tricky conditions. The Brazilian driver eventually got the No. 1 Audi back to the pits, but was later retired due to tub damage.

The No. 2 Audi was retired just past the halfway mark when Benoit Treluyer also suffered an accident and was unable to get the heavily damaged machine back to the pits for repairs.

Audi’s double DNF opened the door for Porsche, making its return to top-level prototype racing, to secure a podium finish in the debut of its 919 Hybrid.

The No. 20 car of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber finished two laps back from the winning Toyota, having struggled in the wet conditions with its low-downforce, Le Mans-style aero package.

Porsche’s sister No. 14 entry retired in the second hour with hydraulic issues after an early trip to the garage for suspension repairs due to losing its left-front wheel.

While the No. 13 Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Toyota also retired early with gearbox issues, the Anglo-Swiss squad’s No. 12 entry of Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche came home a surprise fourth overall in the attrition-filled LMP1 race.

LMP2 class honors went to the No. 26 G-Drive Racing Morgan-Nissan of Olivier Pla, Roman Rusinov and Julien Canal, which enjoyed a late-race duel with the No. 47 KCMG Oreca 03 Nissan, after the Hong Kong-based entry led much of the race.

However, a stop-and-go penalty for a pit lane speeding infraction in the fourth hour took the Matt Howson, Tsugio Matsuda and Richard Bradley-driven entry out of the lead and gave clear sailing to the OAK Racing-run entry.

The two SMP Racing Oreca-Nissans, the only other two entries in this weekend’s depleted LMP2 field, suffered a series of issues, with the all-Russian-driven No. 37 car retiring in the third hour with fuel pump failure.

Next up for the FIA WEC is the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, set for May 3-4.

RESULTS: Six Hours of Silverstone

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Second-gen Porsche 919 completes first test programme

9:16am 23 January 2015

Autosport
0

The second-generation porsche 919 hybrid completed more than 4000km over the course of its first development test this week. the…  More >

Nissan’s new LMP1 spotted at COTA

1:28pm 20 January 2015

Sportscar365
0

q5vlij98bigbkxt60ezd

Jalopnik has reported monday that new nissan’s new lmp1 challenger, the nissan gt-r lm nismo, has been spotted testing…  More >

Porsche reveals its 2015 919 challenger

11:38am 17 January 2015

Autosport
0

1421416371

Porsche has revealed its all-new, second-generation 919 hybrid ahead of the start of its first test of the new…  More >

Jaguar hasn’t raced in the le mans top category since 1991, but that hasn’t stopped designer mark hostler dreaming up…  More >

Sportscars: ‘Whats new in 2015?’ – Part Three: LMP2

6:00am 31 December 2014

MotorNews.co.nz
0

Mazda-p2-2

After a year that saw the aco prototype class struggle for numbers in north america and on the global…  More >

Sportscars: ‘Whats new in 2015?’ – Part Two: GT3 & GT-E

6:00am 30 December 2014

MotorNews.co.nz
0

Gulf12Hours_Race-59

There will be a number of new and revised gt3 racers on the grids during 2015. mclaren the new, very good-looking,…  More >

RACE COUNTDOWN

V8 SuperTourers

Round 4

Waikato 250, Hampton Downs, 31 January

NZV8

Round 5

Manfeild Circuit, Feilding, 15 February

Indycars

Round 1

Brasilia Indy 300, Brasilia, 1 March

V8 Supercars

Round 1

Clipsal 500, Adelaide, 1 March

V8 Supercars

Round 2

Tasmania 400, Symmons Plains, 1 March

  • Latest story comments

  • CRC Motornews poll

    Who do you think will be top of the Kiwi in the 2014 V8 Supercars?

      View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...
  • Newsletter icon

    Get the latest motorsport news delivered to your inbox