Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team 1: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber, Porsche Team 2: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb
The reigning world champions Timo Bernhard (DE), Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber (AU) repeated their last year’s win at the six-hour race at the Nürburgring (DE). By doing so, Porsche, with the 919 Hybrid, extended their lead in the manufacturer standings of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). Romain Dumas (FR), Neel Jani (CH) and Marc Lieb (DE) came fourth in the race and continue to lead the drivers’ world championship. Just like the 2015 debut, the German round of the WEC was a success: 58,000 spectators witnessed breathtaking motorsport in nice summer weather in the Eifel mountains. It was the fourth of nine rounds of the 2016 WEC.
Podium WEC 6 Hours of Nurburgring – Nurburgring – Nurburg – Germany
This is the third victory this season for the Porsche 919 Hybrid, after wins at the Silverstone and Le Mans races. In total the prototype has won ten races since its 2014 debut. For Bernhard/Hartley/Webber it is their fifth success. Porsche now leads the manufacturers’ standings with 164 points ahead of Audi (129) and Toyota (97). Dumas/Jani/Lieb lead the drivers’ standings by 33 points.
GTE Pro –
Gimi Bruni was able to keep his fourth place at the start, while Davide Rigon started out in full attack mode, overtaking immediately all cars of the GTE-Am class and tailing the Porsche that brought the rear of the GTE-Pro group. Shortly after, the Italian driver managed to overtake Christensen too and began chasing the No. 66 Ford. The No. 95 Aston Martin in the lead kept gaining ground, while Bruni lacked the speed in the straight to challenge the No. 67 Ford. At this point, the AF Corse team chose to operate an undercut, stopping the 51 car slightly ahead of plan. James Calado took the wheel and climbed to second place, taking advantage of the troubles of the 67 Ford and of the great work of the mechanics. The two following pit stops took place in full course yellow mode, with the cars forced to travel at 80 km/h: Bruni completed a double stint during which he did a masterpiece overtake of the Aston Martin No. 95 to take first place, while car No. 71 went up to third place. Then, at the start of the last hour, Bird and Rigon took advantage of yet another full course yellow period to leapfrog the Aston Martin, which had stopped under green flag. This completed a great comeback that places them two points away from the top of the standings.
Drivers Porsche 919 Hybrid number 1
Timo Bernhard (35, Germany): “At the start I managed to improve to P2 and kept putting pressure on the leader. During my first stint I was next to the Audi two or three times. I even overtook him once but missed my braking point because I was focussed on the GT traffic. That allowed him to pass me again. On my second stint I was the fastest car on track and we could make up some time. The final stint was a lot of work as well. To me this win today tastes especially sweet. It was hard fought, for me it is another one on home turf and it helps make up for the bad luck we had in the first three rounds of the championship.”
Brendon Hartley (26, New Zealand): “Thanks to Porsche, to the mechanics, the engineers, Timo and Mark – it feels great to be back on the top of the podium. Early stages of the race were good and we overtook the leading Audi in the first pit window because our crew was faster. Then we had some bad luck with the traffic and got a slow puncture that lead to an early stop. With my second stint I was a lot happier. The track was coming to the car in terms of balance. I pulled away from the Audi and then we took the lead of the race.”
Mark Webber (39, Australia): “I’m very happy for Porsche winning their home race. It was an exceptional performance against strong competition. This is the day of the mechanics of car number 1 who had some tough times recently and it is good points for the constructors’ championship. We had completely different track conditions in the race than we saw before and I was very happy with the performance of our car and our driving. It was a bit of a mixed up race. We lost some time in a full course yellow period when the car in front of me wasn’t going 80 km/h as the regulations say. Then our sister car had a drive through penalty. We had great battles on track with Audi and I was never bothered which of our cars did it, but the most important thing to me was to beat Audi today.”
