Porsche have secured the manufacturers’ title at the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the six-hour race in Shanghai. The driver trios of Timo Bernhard (DE)/Brendon Hartley (NZ)/Mark Webber (AU) and Romain Dumas (FR)/Neel Jani (CH)/Marc Lieb (DE) finished first and fourth to earn Porsche 38 points. Having now scored 301 points in total, Audi (222) and Toyota (207) cannot now catch Porsche at the last round in Bahrain on November 19.
“What a day,” commented Hartley! “The first corner after the start was interesting. I think the Toyota used a big package of energy from the e-motor and passed me quite easily into turn one. I knew he would suffer later in the lap, because according to the rules you can only use a certain amount of energy. I got him just before the safety car came out.
“This was a good little battle on the first lap, and after that I just tried to keep it clean and handed the car over with an 18 second lead. We had to change the nose because a massive peace of rubber had damaged the light. Once again our pit stops were great and on my last double stint everything went smoothly. I am very, very happy.”
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing returned to the podium with second and third place finishes in the 6 Hours of Shanghai, the penultimate race of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season.
The #6 TS050 HYBRID of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi recovered from the misfortune of two tyre punctures to earn second place and their fifth consecutive podium finish.
That result keeps them in the fight for the drivers’ World Championship, having closed the gap on Porsche #2 to 17 points with 26 still to fight for in the final race, in Bahrain on 19 November.
Third place for Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, their first podium of the season, strengthened the team’s challenge for runners-up in the manufacturers’ championship. TOYOTA is 15 points behind Audi with a maximum of 44 available.
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