The 919 Hybrid n°1 offers the Manufacturers’ title to Porsche

La Porsche No. 1 of Hartley-Bernhard-Webber signs its 4th victory in five races by winning the 6 Hours of Shanghai for the second year in a row. Starting from pole, the 919 Hybrid of the 2015 world champions dominated the race and reached the finish line almost a minute ahead. The Stuttgart manufacturer clinches the Manufacturers' title with its 6th success of the season.

Toyota pushed back the deadline for the Drivers' title by completing the podium with the No. 050 TS6 Hybrid of Sarrazin-Kobayashi-Conway. The race of the direct opponents of the Championship leaders was complicated with a slow puncture, but the sister car n°5 of Davidson-Buemi-Nakajima respected team instructions by leaving 2nd place to the contenders. The leading team from the Japanese manufacturer reduced its deficit to 17 points against the leaders.

The No. 2 Porsche of Championship leaders Dumas-Lieb-Jani once again missed the podium by finishing in fourth position ahead of the two Audis. The R18s were transparent on the Chinese circuit, the n°8 of Duval-Jarvis-Di Grassi completing the top five three laps behind the winners while the No. 7 of Tréluyer-Fässler-Tréluyer moved up to 6th place losing a dozen laps in the pits following contact with the other Audi having damaged the pneumatic cylinder.

ByKolles Racing took 7th place with the CLM01/P1 of Trummer-Webb-Kaffer and won in the private LMP1 class while Rebellion Racing encountered exhaust problems on the R-One of Tuscher-Imperatori-Kraihamer only 24th.

Alpine won the LMP2 title by settling for 4th position in the No. 460 A36 Stone-Menezes-Richelmi behind the Ligier JS P2 of RGR Sport by Morand of Gonzalez-Albuquerque-Senna. G-Drive Racing achieved another success with the Oreca 05 of Stevens-Rusinov-Brundle which won ahead of the Ligier JS P2 ESM of Blomqvist-Giovinazzi-Gelael.

The Ford GTs once again dominated the GTE Pro. Victory went to the No. 67 of Tincknell-Priaulx who preceded Pla-Mücke's sister car by almost a minute. There Ferrari 488 n°51 from AF Corse from Bruni-Calado completed the category podium without managing to threaten the Americans.

THEAston Martin Vantage n°98 of Dalla Lana-Lauda-Lamy once again won in GTE Am. The KCMG Porsche 911 RSR driven by Christian Ried, Wolf Henzler and Joël Camathias was penalized at the end of the 6 Hours of Shanghai. The stewards imposed a ten-second penalty on the #78 due to contact with the #458 AF Corse Ferrari 83 of Rui Aguas which was battling with the Porsche.

The Portuguese ultimately took second place in the category with teammates Emmanuel Collard and François Perrodo at the top of the Drivers' standings in the category, while KCMG's 911 RSR was demoted to third.

The 2016 season finale of WEC will be contested on Saturday November 19 in Bahrain.

Discover the analysis of the 6 Hours of Shanghai carried out by our special correspondents in issue 2088 of AUTOhebdo, available from Monday evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.