Shanghai WEC: Toyota takes 1-2 in stop-start race

Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi scored their second win in a row in the #7 TS050 Hybrid over the sister #8 car shared by Fernando Alonso, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi.

Heavy rain caused two lengthy stoppages in the opening half of the race, and it wasn't until hour four that conditions improved sufficiently to allow serious green-flag action to commence.

The order was mixed up as different cars made their first pitstops at different times, but the superiority of the Toyotas over the non-hybrid LMP1s was clear and the two TS050 Hybrids quickly hit the front once the race began in earnest.

It was the #8 car that had been ahead during the early stages after a mistake by Lopez in the first few green flag laps allowed Buemi by, but the #7 jumped back ahead because it made its second stop a lap earlier than the sister car on a lap that the field was being led through the pitlane by the safety car.

The #8 also lost further time being held up by a red light at the end of the pits, handing the #7 car an advantage of some 20 seconds.

That grew to as large as half a minute before Nakajima began to close the gap to Conway, but the safety car was deployed again with 20 minutes to go after a crash for the #17 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1.

The two Toyotas held position in the final six minutes when the safety car came in, Conway crossing the line 1.4 seconds clear of Nakajima.

Jenson Button secured his first podium of the year in the surviving #11 SMP BR1 he shares with Russian duo Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov, a lap down on the winning Toyota.

The final safety car wiped out the #11 car's advantage over the #1 Rebellion R-13, but Neel Jani, Bruno Senna and Andre Lotterer had to be content with fourth after Lotterer dropped 16 seconds in the wet closing stages.

The #3 Rebellion lost two laps early on when Thomas Laurent hit the barriers under the safety car, but the first stoppage allowed the car to be repaired and it recovered to fifth, three laps down.

DragonSpeed's customer BR1 made it to the finish in sixth, while the solo ByKolles ENSO CLM P1/01 dropped out with engine failure, parking up on the main straight and dumping oil on track.

LMP2: Jackie Chan DC Racing wins again

LMP2 honours went to Jackie Chan DC Racing for the third time in a row, with Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Stephane Richelmi picking up their second victory of 2018.

The #38 Oreca trio came out on top in a straight fight with the #31 DragonSpeed machine shared by Anthony Davidson, Pastor Maldonado and Roberto Gonzalez, despite two late spins for Aubry.

Third in class went to the #36 Signatech Alpine entry, but only after the #28 TDS Racing car, which was set for the place, found itself in the pits at the finish because of a drive-time mix-up and therefore wasn't classified.

The Fuji-winning #37 Jackie Chan Oreca lost a lap when Weiron Tan suffered an off at Turn 2 and ended up fifth in class.

GTE: Aston Martin dominates in wet

Aston Martin secured its first victory in the GTE Pro class with its all-new Vantage GTE, as the #95 car finished seventh overall ahead of the LMP2-winning #38 Oreca.

The #95 shared by Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen took full advantage of the British marque's speed in the wet conditions, as both Astons stayed at the head of the class for much of the race after cycling ahead in the early pitstops.

However, the #97 car of Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin - which lost out to the sister car with a green-flag pitstop and was left on old tyres for the finish - was reeled in and passed with around 30 minutes to go by Richard Lietz in the #91 Porsche 911 RSR he shares with Gianmaria Bruni.

The points-leading #92 Porsche took third after Michael Christensen relegated Martin in the dying moments.

Christensen's teammate Kevin Estre escaped sanction after tapping the pole-winning #66 Ford GT of Olivier Pla into a spin during the first batch of green flag laps.

Ferrari's best representative was the #51 car of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in fifth, followed on the road by the lead BMW M8 of Martin Tomczyk and Nicky Catsburg in sixth.

However, Tomczyk was issued with a 23-second time penalty for making contact with the Ford of Harry Tincknell, dropping the #81 BMW to ninth.

Corvette's lone one-off C7.R entry was 10th on the road, but was promoted to eighth by both the Tomczyk penalty and a separate offence for the #67 Ford relating to a safety car pitstop violation.

The Dempsey-Proton squad recovered from the blow of losing all the points it has scored so far in the 2018/19 season by taking victory in GTE Am.

Matt Campbell, Julien Andlauer and Christian Ried came out on top in the #77 Porsche, 8.7s ahead of the Project 1 car shared by Fuji winners Jorg Bergmeister, Egidio Perfetti and Patrick Lindsey.

Race results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Time
1	7	Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway   Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	113
2	8	Fernando Alonso   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	113	1.419
3	11	Jenson Button   Vitaly Petrov   Mikhail Aleshin	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	112	1 lap
4	1	Andre Lotterer   Bruno Senna   Neel Jani	Rebellion R13	LMP1	112	1 lap
5	3	Mathias Beche   Thomas Laurent   Gustavo Menezes	Rebellion R13	LMP1	110	3 laps
6	10	Renger van der Zande   Ben Hanley   James Allen	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	110	3 laps
7	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
8	38	Ho-Pin Tung   Stéphane Richelmi   Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	109	4 laps
9	91	Gianmaria Bruni   Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
10	92	Michael Christensen   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
11	97	Maxime Martin   Alex Lynn	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
12	31	Anthony Davidson   Pastor Maldonado   Roberto Gonzalez	Oreca 07	LMP2	109	4 laps
13	51	James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
14	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Pierre Thiriet   Andre Negrao	Alpine A470	LMP2	109	4 laps
15	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
16	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
17	64	Oliver Gavin   Tommy Milner	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
18	81	Nick Catsburg   Martin Tomczyk	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
19	67	Harry Tincknell   Andy Priaulx	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	109	4 laps
20	82	Antonio Felix da Costa   Tom Blomqvist	BMW M8 GTE	LMGTE PRO	108	5 laps
21	77	Christian Ried   Matt Campbell   Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	108	5 laps
22	56	Jörg Bergmeister   Patrick Lindsey   Egidio Perfetti	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	108	5 laps
23	88	Matteo Cairoli   Riccardo Pera   Khaled Al-Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	108	5 laps
24	37	Nabil Jeffri   Weiron Tan   Jazeman Jaafar	Oreca 07	LMP2	108	5 laps
25	54	Giancarlo Fisichella   Francesco Castellacci   Thomas Flohr	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	108	5 laps
26	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	108	5 laps
27	70	Olivier Beretta   Eddie Cheever III   Motoaki Ishikawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	107	6 laps
28	61	Matthew Griffin   Mok Weng Sun   Keita Sawa	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE AM	107	6 laps
29	90	Jonathan Adam   Salih Yoluc   Charles Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE AM	105	8 laps
30	86	Michael Wainwright   Benjamin Barker   Thomas Preining	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	100	13 laps
31	29	Giedo van der Garde   Nyck de Vries   Frits van Eerd	Dallara P217	LMP2	99	14 laps
32	50	Enzo Guibbert   Romano Ricci   Erwin Creed	Ligier JSP 217	LMP2	88	25 laps
33	28	Loic Duval   François Perrodo   Matthieu Vaxiviere	Oreca 07	LMP2	-	-
34	17	Stéphane Sarrazin   Matevos Isaakyan   Egor Orudzhev	BR Engineering BR1	LMP1	-	-
35	4	Oliver Webb   Tom Dillmann   James Rossiter	ENSO CLM P1/01	LMP1	-	-