After a thrilling six hour race in Silverstone Neel Jani (CH) finished second in the Porsche 919 Hybrid he shares with Romain Dumas (FR) and Marc Lieb (DE). The race win went to Audi at the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC). All three manufacturers that are involved with class 1 Le Mans Prototypes – Audi, Porsche and Toyota – had trouble in the race. Porsche suffered the biggest drama when the number 1 car of reigning World Champions Timo Bernhard (DE), Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber (AU) crashed after around two hours. Hartley touched a GT car when lapping it. Both drivers walked away unhurt from what was a spectacular accident. After Silverstone saw rain and snow on the previous days, on Sunday the race start was in bright sunshine with the two 919 Hybrids of title defender Porsche lining up third and fourth on the grid for the first of nine World Championship rounds. By doing the fastest lap of the race (1:40.303 minutes) Neel Jani proved the competitiveness of the innovative hybrid race car.
How the race went for car number 1:
Start driver Mark Webber is in P3 in the early laps, but then catches up to the leading Audis. Going into lap 7, he overtakes the number 8 Audi and improves to second. After 16 laps he gets by the number 7 Audi as well as taking the lead. After 27 laps he hands over to Brendon Hartley for a double stint. With a comfortable lead of 44 seconds ahead of Audi number 7, Hartley comes in for fuel and tyres after 55 laps. On lap 71 the race is over for the reigning World Champions, because of a heavy accident when lapping a GT car.
Quotes after the race:
Dr Oliver Blume, Chairman of the board Porsche AG:
“The race was thrilling right to the end. Highs and lows were close together – that’s racing. The season opener clearly proved the extremely high level of the World Endurance Championship. The tight competition between such different car concepts is fascinating and groundbreaking. Qualifying, as well as the race result, are extra motivation for us to be back on top again next time.”
Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1:
“We have an action packed weekend behind us. Qualifying wasn’t ideal for us and in the race we had various kinds of troubles, such as Brendon Hartley’s accident, and we are relieved he wasn’t hurt. In the end we had the puncture on car number 2. Nevertheless: congratulations to Audi. We came second, Toyota third – for the championship this is a great start to the season. The spectators can look forward to some very exciting racing. In Spa we will attack again.”
Andreas Seidl, Team Principal:
“Congratulations to Audi. We should have won today’s race, but several incidents prevented us from doing so. Our number 1 car had a solid lead and lost the race in an accident with a GT car. The number 2 car also had a collision with a GT car, and in the end had one additional pit stop because of a puncture. Nevertheless: We had the fastest car on the grid and the fastest pit crew. Many thanks to the development team back home in Weissach and to the crew on site – we can count on our strengths.”
Brendon Hartley (26, New Zealand):
“Hugely disappointed with yesterday. Mark did a mega job getting the car to the lead, the car was awesome and we were stretching it. I had high speed contact with a GT car before the 3 hour mark. Passing traffic with more than 50km/h speed difference is never straight forward but very easy for critics to point fingers. It is normal for the prototype cars to pass around the outside of turn 2 as the normal racing line is just half track to make the braking for the next tight right. It’s my job as an LMP1 driver to read the car in front and get around safely, I didn’t. It is of course the right of the car in front to take what ever line they want. It all happened very quick and in hindsight I would have done it differently! I will learn from this experience.”
“Team spirit could not be higher on car #1 and I thank the entire Porsche team for the job they did yesterday. Not the result we wanted but Myself, Timo and Mark stand together and will fight back in Spa.”
