Porsche celebrate fine one-two in WEC Six Hours of Fuji

Tokyo, Oct. 12 (BNA): Porsche inched closer towards claiming this year’s manufacturers’ title in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), following an impressive one-two on Sunday at the FIA WEC Six Hours of Fuji in Japan. The trio of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard steered their no. 17 Porsche 919 Hybird to the victory to end an eventful and exciting race that marked the sixth of eight rounds in the WEC season. Webber, Hartley and Bernhard clinched first place ahead of Porsche teammates Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani, who were runners-up in their no. 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid. Both teams completed a total of 216 laps, but the winners were quicker by 14.306 seconds. The Audi trio of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer claimed the final podium step. Driving their Audi R18 e-tron Quattro, they finished third overall just one lap behind the top two. Fellow Audi drivers Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis were ranked fourth overall. They completed the event two laps behind the victors. Defending champions Toyota had to settle for fifth and sixth on the race’s final classification. Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima were two laps behind the winners, while an entire 13 laps back were Alexander Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway in the other Toyota car were sixth. Each of the top six were a part of the LMP1 class. Rounding out the race’s most competitive category were the Rebellion R-One car (13 laps) and the CLM P1/01 (17 laps). With the result, Porsche improved to 264 points on the FIA World Endurance Manufacturers’ Championship standings. Audi remain second with 211 points, Toyota third with 119 points. Nissan are in last place with zero markers. In the LMP2 class, the trio of Roman Rusinov, Julien Canal and Sam Bird stormed to a fine victory in their Ligier JS P2-Nissan car. They finished with an 18-lap gap from the triumphant Porsche cars up front. The LMGTE Pro category was claimed by the tandem of Gianmaria Bruni and Tony Vilander in their Ferrari F458 Italia. They finished 23 laps behind first place. In the LMGTE Am class, the team of Patrick Dempsey, Patrick Long and Marco Seefried emerged triumphant. Driving a Porsche 911 RSR, they claimed first place 29 laps from the winners. A total of 31 cars took part in the Six Hours of Fuji, and they competed in the four different race classes. Following Fuji, the next round of the FIA WEC takes place in China for the Six Hours of Shanghai on November 1. The WEC will then move on to the kingdom for the FIA WEC Six Hours of Bahrain weekend, happening as the season-finale on November 20 and 21.