Audi plays with the elements in Austin

Toyota had the best start, but it was Audi which emerged in the lead at the finish of the 6 Hours of Austin in Texas, 4th round of the World ChampionshipEndurance 2014. If the Japanese LM P1-H dominated the start of the race, notably thanks to a Sébastien Buemi twirling on the No. 040 TS8 Hybrid and having widened a substantial gap, the arrival of the rain completely upset the hierarchy with the two Toyotas at fault on slicks under the downpours, the No. 8 remaining stuck in the gravel trap. She was not the only one, Porsche 919 n°20 being the victim of a similar mishap.

So much so that after a long interruption of 45 minutes, it was the two Audi R18s and the No. 919 Porsche 14 which finally fought for the final victory. After swapping positions for a while depending on refueling, the R18 n°2 of Marcel Fässler? Benoît Tréluyer and André Lotterer, took over the sister car of Tom Kristensen? Loïc duval ? Lucas DiGrassi. Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb and the No. 919 Porsche 14 had their sights set on the podium for a long time, but ultimately had to lose in the face of the return of the No. 8 Toyota of Buemi-Stone-Davidson who retain the lead in the Drivers' championship by 11 points while Audi takes control of the Manufacturers' standings by 18 points.

In LM P1-L, the #12 Rebellion R-One driven by Nicolas Cheers – Nick Heidfeld and Mathias Beche won ahead of the Lotus P1/01 of Christophe Bouchut, James Rossiter and Lucas Auer, which was making its first outing in WEC this season. The second R-One retired in the last hour.

In LM P2, the KCMG team won its first victory in the World Championship with Richard Bradley? Tsugio Matsuda and Matt Howson entered in the No. 47 Oreca-Nissan. They are ahead of their rivals throughout the entire American event, the other Oreca-Nissan from SMP Racing of Nicolas Minassian, Sergey Zlobin and Maurzio Mediani, the HPD ARX 03b from Extreme Speed ​​Motorsports of Ryan Dalziel? Scott Sharp and Ed Brown, who had long led the debates completing the podium in the category.

In GT, Aston Martin achieves the double by winning both in GTE Pro and in GTE Am. The #97 Vantage in the hands of Stefan Mücke? Darren Turner won in Pro by just over nine seconds over the Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet and Fredéric Makowiecki, the Ferrari 458 Italia from AF Corse of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander completing the podium. In GTE Am, the #98 Vantage of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard is ahead of the other #95 Aston Martin of Richie Stanaway, Kristian Poulsen and David Heinemeier-Hansson and the Proton Competition Porsche 911 of Christian Reid, Klaus Bachler and Khaled Al-Qubaisi.

Find the report and analysis of the 6 Hours of Austin in the WEC, produced by our special correspondent in Texas, in issue 1979 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version and from next Wednesday on newsstands.