Porsche’s reigning FIA World Endurance champions bag first win of the year
Reigning World Endurance champions Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley claimed their first win of the season at the Nurburgring last weekend.
The Porsche 919 crew has been blighted by problems so far this season with 10th place at Le Mans last month being the trio’s best finish. But, despite an early puncture, the champions were able to end their poor run of results.
The LMP1 Porsches and Audis appeared equally matched in the early stages of the race with both Audis leading during the opening hours. The Porsches then took command but the 919 of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas dropped out of contention after contact with backmarkers and a drivethrough penalty.
This allowed Webber/bernhard/ Hartley to win, and Webber said: “This is a brilliant win for our car. We kept our heads down and hung in there, and the Audis ran out of a bit of steam.”
The Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis beat Marcel Fassler and Andre Lotterer’s sister R18.
The Signatech Alpine squad of Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Gustavo Menezes made it a hat-trick of LMP2 wins, despite the G-drive ORECA leading initially before being forced out with transmission problems.
Ferrari took a one-two in GTE Pro – with Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado first – after the Aston Martin of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen lost out with the timing of its final pitstop.
The Aston of Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana triumphed in GTE Am.