Porsche prevail in Nürburgring heat

Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard took their maiden WEC win as Porsche took a 1-2 finish at the Nürburgring 6 Hours.

Confirming that their form at Le Mans was no flash in the pan, the two 919 Hybrids led away from the start, with polesitter Neel Jani building up a 40 second advantage over a struggling Bernhard, who was forced to pit early for a nose change. Marcel Fassler was briefly able to leapfrog into second place, but Webber, who took his first Grand Prix win at the Nürburgring in 2009, was more than equal to the task and with his damaged splitter fixed, was able to work his way past the Swiss at Turn 3.

Jani had the pace to win in the no. 18, but the day
belonged to his team-mates (Nick Dungan, Adrenal).

It was to prove crucial as second would soon translate to first when Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb were hit by a succession of stop-go penalties – the first five seconds, then thirty seconds and finally a minute – for exceeding their fuel consumption, relegating the 18 crew to the tail of the lead lap and behind both Audi R18 e-tron Quattros of Fassler/ Andre Lotterer/ Benoit Treluyer and Loic Duval/ Oliver Jarvis/ Lucas di Grassi.

But all was not lost, and on a day when Porsche enjoyed a clear edge over Audi, a stellar treble-stint from Jani clawed the no. 18 919 back to second in the final hour, although there was no chance of catching his joyous team-mates. Championship leader Lotterer allowed di Grassi through as Audi tried in vain to catch Lieb in the closing stages, but re-took the place with minutes to spare to consolidate the no. 7 crew’s record of finishing on the podium in every race so far this season, while Toyota were again off the pace, defending champions Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima finishing three laps down in fifth and a further lap ahead of Alex Wurz, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin.

Despite the rear-wing falling off their CLM on the front straight, ByKolles pairing Pierre Kaffer and Simon Trummer took privateer honours for the first time this season, two laps ahead of the no. 13 Rebellion of Nick Heidfeld, Mathias Beche and Nicolas Prost, which suffered from electrical gremlins.

G-Drive couldn't compete with the pace of the KCMG (John Rourke, Adrenal).

In LMP2, Matt Howson and Richard Bradley extended their championship lead with a peerless run to victory over G-Drive. On his return to the KCMG line-up following his Le Mans heroics, Nick Tandy qualified the ORECA 05 on pole and built a commanding lead in the opening stint over the chasing Sam Bird/ Roman Rusinov/ Julien Canal and Pipo Derani/Gustavo Yacaman/ Ricardo Gonzalez, only for a sluggish pitstop to cost the Brit 17 seconds and the lead. However, the silver-rated Rusinov was unable to keep a charging Howson behind him and could only watch as Yacaman followed suit a few laps later.

The Colombian put Howson under severe pressure for several laps, but after the stops Gonzalez was no match for Bradley, who cleared off into the distance. That left the Ligiers to fight it out amongst themselves, and when Gonzalez was held up in traffic, Canal was on hand to pounce for second. Oli Webb, Pierre Ragues and Archie Hamilton were a creditable fourth in the SARD-Morand Morgan, while Signatech Alpine narrowly defeated the best of the ESM Ligiers in the battle for fifth. Two pitlane speeding penalties relegated the promising Strakka-Gibson to seventh at the finish.

Porsche’s dominance continued in the GTE-Pro class, as the 91 and 92 cars finished first and second. After Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander’s Ferrari ground to a halt just 15 minutes into the race, Michael Christiansen and Richard Leitz were untroubled out in front, but there was an element of controversy surrounding Fred Makowiecki and Patrick Pilet’s second place finish. Having served a drive-through penalty for a jump start, Makowiecki found himself glued to the back of James Calado’s Ferrari for several laps; so close in fact, that when the Full Course Yellow came out to retrieve the rear wing of the CLM, the unsighted Porsche driver clouted the rear of the Ferrari, fouling the rear bodywork against a tyre and causing a puncture.

Makowiecki and Pilet survived their altercation with the 71 Ferrari
to finish second (Nick Dungan, Adrenal).

When the inevitable penalty did eventually come, it was in the form of another drive-through, enabling Pilet to maintain position over the frustrated Calado and Davide Rigon. After a promising Le Mans, Aston Martin weren’t at the races at the Nürburgring and never looked likely to trouble the podium places, with the 95 Dane Train of Marco Sorensen, Nicki Thiim and Christoffer Nygaard heading the 99 and 97, which featured British GT star Jonny Adam in a Pro line-up for the first time.

There was at least some good news for Ferrari in GTE-Am, as the no. 72 SMP squad took their second consecutive victory. In the end, Andrea Bertolini, Viktor Shaytar and Aleksey Basov proved just too strong for the no. 98 Aston Martin of Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana, while Emmanuele Collard, Rui Aguas and Francois Perrodo completed the podium in the no. 83 AF Corse Ferrari.