Toyota dominates the elements at Spa and secures the Teams title

Toyota Gazoo Racing a fait coup double ce samedi à Spa-Francorchamps, winning the six-hour race, but dropping out before the final of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the LM P1 Teams title.

The threesome Fernando Alonso - Sébastien Buemi - Kazuki Nakajima dominated the elements at the wheel of the No. 050 TS8 Hybrid, taking advantage in particular of the sensor problem encountered shortly before halfway by the No. 7 of Lopez – Kobayashi - Conway, part of the pole and dominant at the start of the event.

The leading Japanese LM P1 subsequently managed its lead, making light of the various interventions of the safety car. The last neutralization took place 45′ from the finish, before the final restart a quarter of an hour from the goal, and before a red flag 11′ from the goal which definitively ended the debates.

Second place went to the No. 13 R3 – Rebellion Racing after very good work from Thomas Laurent in the last two hours, the Frenchman taking a decisive advantage over the No. 1 BR11 – SMP Racing.

The Russian-flagged prototype completes the leading trio with the crew Vitaly Petrov – Stoffel Vandoorne – Mikhail Aleshin, Vandoorne taking the podium for his debut in WEC.

The LM P2 category saw the success of the Oreca 07 n°31 – DragonSpeed ​​of Pastor Maldonado – Roberto Gonzalez – Anthony Davidson ahead of the Aurus 01 – n°26 – G-Drive Racing of Vergne – Rusinov – van Uitert and theAlpine A470 n°36 – Signatech Alpine de Stone - negrao – Thiriet, at the forefront for a long time.

Aston Martin toujours à l’aise sous l’eau, Porsche titrée

Maxime Martin will remain one of the great men of these 6 2019 Hours of Spa, the Belgian offering victory to the No. 97 Aston Martin Vantage shared with Alex Lynn. The Gaydon driver took the advantage over the competition in the last two hours of the race, before widening the gap, ultimately reduced to nothing by the last Safety Car.

But Martin did not tremble at the restart and maintained his lead over the Ferrari 488 n°51 – AF Corse de Calado – Pier Guidi. Kévin Estre and Michael Christensen (Porsche 911 n°92) finished 3rd and moved a little closer to the Drivers' title.

Bruni and Lietz (Porsche no. 91) were in 3rd place at the last restart, but a drive-through resulted in contact with the Ferrari no. 70. Porsche, however, secures the Manufacturers' title in GTE.

#WEC – World champions! The Porsche GT Team has secured the manufacturers' championship at the penultimate round of the 2018/2019 @FIAWEC Great Season! @PorscheNewsroom pic.twitter.com/CBcnsEQbve

— Porsche Motorsport (@PorscheRaces) May 4, 2019

The German brand also came out on top in GTE Am with the No. 911 77 RSR – Dempsey-Proton Racing de Pera – Ried – Campbell.

Overall classification – end of race, #6hSpa #fiawec pic.twitter.com/9LEjFKJOyF

— Spa-Francorchamps (@circuitspa) May 4, 2019

Discover the full report and analysis of the 6 Hours of Spa, produced by our special correspondents in Belgium, in issue 2215 of AUTOhebdo, available from this Monday evening in digital version and from this Wednesday on newsstands.