Toyota and Porsche triumph at the 1 Miles of Sebring

Toyota Gazoo Racing a accroché une nouvelle épreuve mythique à son palmarès. Dans la nuit de vendredi 15 à samedi 16 mars, l’équipage composé de Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima et Fernando Alonso won the 1 Miles of Sebring, the sixth round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) 2018-19. 

#1000MSebring checkered flag is out under safety car! @Toyota_Hybrid #8 conquers the bumps after a brilliant race! Congratulations to @alo_oficial, @Sebastien_buemi and @kazuki_info for this important win.#WEC #SuperSebring #RespectTheBumps pic.twitter.com/QENbaZmjzW

- WEC (@FIAWEC) March 16, 2019

The No. 050 Toyota TS8 Hybrid had the game made easier by the collision of the second Toyota prototype driven by José Maria Lopez in the fourth hour of the race. The Argentinian lost a round due to damage linked to the touch with theAston Martin Jonny Adam's Vantage GTE. 

Accompanied by Mike conway et Kamui Kobayashi, José Mara Lopez termine au deuxième rang. Le podium est complété par les Russes du SMP Racing Mikhail Aleshin et Vitaly Petrov, rejoints pour l’occasion par l’ancien pilote Porsche Brendon Hartley. 

In LM P2, success easily went to the new trio of the No. 07 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 37 (Heinemeier-Hansson-King-Stevens), which led the category from the second round in Florida. Nicolas lapierre, Andre Negrao placeholder image and Pierre Thiriet (Signatech Alpine) are the only ones to be registered in the same round as the winners. To note that Loïc duval went off the track in pouring rain in the last hour. 

In GTE Pro, it was again Porsche who won. Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni led the 911 RSR to the top step of the podium, ahead of BMW representatives Tomczyk-Catsburg-Sims. On home soil, the Ford GT driven by Priaulx-Tincknell-Bomarito finished third. 

#WEC GTE gang diving into T17 like..#1000MSebring #SuperSebring #RespectTheBumps pic.twitter.com/pYuAPUgaEV

- WEC (@FIAWEC) March 15, 2019

Finally, Frenchman Julien Andlauer won the GTE Am class with Dempsey-Proton Racing and his sidekicks Matt Campbell and Christian Ried. The former pilot of Formula 1 Giancarlo Fisichella finished second with the Spirit of Race while Team Project 1 (3rd) relaunched in fine fashion after the fire of the Porsche 911 RSR in testing a few days earlier. 

Find the analysis of the WEC at Sebring by our special correspondent in the next AUTOhebdo, available Monday evening digitally and Wednesday on newsstands.