Austin WEC: Porsche scoops victory from Audi at COTA

Audi dominated the opening stages, although Webber (who started on used tyres) briefly split them on the first lap. It converted a 1-2 front row lock out to a convincing race performance in the daylight hours, but Audi’s chances completely unravelled after sunset.

The duel between Audi and Porsche turned on its head with two hours remaining, as a collision between the #44 Manor Oreca LMP2 and #66 Ford GT in the Esses produced a perfectly-timed full-course yellow for the #1 Porsche.

The #7 Audi of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer – which had previously held a lead of almost a minute – had already made its pitstop before the yellow. The #1 Porsche thus gained a ‘free’ stop under the caution, and leapfrogged into an unlikely lead of 18s.

As the #7 attempted to fight back, Treluyer clipped the #66 Ford GT of Olivier Pla in the fast right-hander at Turn 18 – the very same car that had cost him the lead in the first place.

“The Ford pushed me out, I’m stuck in the gravel,” Treluyer complained. Pla argued: “There was nothing I could do to avoid that.”

The #8 sister Audi had earlier been leading convincingly, but an electrical failure exiting Turn 1 stranded Loic Duval for about 50s while he recycled the system.

The car fell back behind the strongest Toyota – the #6 of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin – and the #8 required two pitstops under full-course yellow when the driver’s door wouldn’t close properly.

A charging penultimate stint from Lucas di Grassi put the #8 Audi back in contention for second, and took the place from the Toyota in the final pitstops. But he was 20s behind the #1 Porsche, which stroked home in Bernhard’s hands to a third successive win.

The points-leading #2 Porsche finished a lacklustre fourth, by its lofty standards, delayed when Neel Jani suffered a puncture and also suffered aerodynamic issues.

The #5 Toyota was a distant fifth, Sebastian Buemi suffering a left-rear puncture plus a wastegate issue that hampered its power output. It was also given a 5s pitstop penalty for overtaking using track limits.

The #7 Audi trailed home sixth after a long delay for repairs following Treluyer’s shunt.

Rebellion won the non-hybrid LMP1 class, ahead of the ByKolles CLM. 

Class wins for Signatech and Aston Martins

The LMP2 class was the preserve of the points-leading #36 Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre/Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi.

The main battle here was for second between the #43 RGR Sport by Morand Ligier and #26 G-Drive Oreca. The latter had to start from the back of the grid, but charging stints by Alex Brundle and Rene Rast took the fight to the Mexico City-winning car but just fell short.

In GTE Pro, the #95 Aston Martin of Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim dominated from start to finish, ahead of the AF Corse Ferraris of Gianmaria Bruni/James Calado and Davide Rigon/Sam Bird.

Sorensen revealed he lost radio contact with the pits in the penultimate stint, and only knew when to pit when the fuel alarm went off.

It was a similar story of Aston domination in GTE Am, as although it lost the lead on the opening lap and dropped to fourth, the #98 Vantage V8 of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda would not be denied victory – despite a late spin for Dalla Lana at Turn 8.

“It’s tough out there – you’re tired and it’s dark,” he explained.

Results:

Pos	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time	Gap
1	1	Mark Webber Timo Bernhard Brendon Hartley	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	186	-
2	8	Lucas di Grassi Loic Duval Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	186	23.641	23.641
3	6	Stéphane Sarrazin Kamui Kobayashi Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	186	26.096	26.096
4	2	Romain Dumas Neel Jani Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	185	1 lap	1 lap
5	5	Anthony Davidson Kazuki Nakajima Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	184	2 laps	2 laps
6	7	Andre Lotterer Marcel Fassler Benoit Tréluyer	Audi R18	LMP1	180	6 laps	6 laps
7	13	Alexandre Imperatori Dominik Kraihamer Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	174	12 laps	12 laps
8	36	Nicolas Lapierre Gustavo Menezes Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	172	14 laps	14 laps
9	43	Bruno Senna Ricardo Gonzalez Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	171	15 laps	15 laps
10	26	Roman Rusinov René Rast Alex Brundle	Oreca 05	LMP2	171	14.915	15 laps
11	4	Simon Trummer Oliver Webb Pierre Kaffer	CLM P1/01	LMP1	170	16 laps	16 laps
12	27	Maurizio Mediani Nicolas Minassian	BR01	LMP2	168	18 laps	18 laps
13	31	Pipo Derani Ryan Dalziel Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	168	5.773	18 laps
14	37	Vitaly Petrov Viktor Shaytar Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	167	19 laps	19 laps
15	30	Scott Sharp Ed Brown Johannes van Overbeek	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	166	20 laps	20 laps
16	95	Marco Sorensen Nicki Thiim	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	163	23 laps	23 laps
17	51	Gianmaria Bruni James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	163	11.486	23 laps
18	71	Sam Bird Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	162	24 laps	24 laps
19	67	Harry Tincknell Andy Priaulx Marino Franchitti	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	162	13.376	24 laps
20	97	Darren Turner Fernando Rees	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE PRO	162	18.413	24 laps
21	77	Richard Lietz Michael Christensen	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	161	25 laps	25 laps
22	35	Nelson Panciatici Ho-Pin Tung David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	160	26 laps	26 laps
23	98	Pedro Lamy Paul Dalla Lana Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	158	28 laps	28 laps
24	78	Christian Ried Wolf Henzler Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	158	1'02.838	28 laps
25	50	Pierre Ragues Ricky Taylor Lars Viljoen	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	157	29 laps	29 laps
26	86	Michael Wainwright Adam Carroll Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	153	33 laps	33 laps
27	88	David Heinemeier Hansson Khaled Al Qubaisi Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	153	1'17.197	33 laps
28	83	François Perrodo Emmanuel Collard Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	147	39 laps	39 laps
29	66	Stefan Mücke Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	144	42 laps	42 laps
30	44	Roberto Merhi Richard Bradley Matthew Rao	Oreca 05	LMP2	157	29 laps	29 laps
31	42	Nick Leventis Jonny Kane Lewis Williamson	Gibson 015S	LMP2	58	128 laps	128 laps