WEC – Audis eclipse Toyota at the 6 Hours of Spa

Of the five factory LM P1 cars, it was the one that got off to the worst start. The No. 18 Audi R-1 e-tron quattro of André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler was the one that won this Saturday during the 6 Hours of Spa. After their second place at Silverstone, the reigning world champions claimed their first victory of the season in WEC. “After a bad start, we quickly caught up? The mechanics worked countless hours to provide us with a good setting, thanks to them, so with Benoît and Marcel we were able to attack as much as we wanted?, explains the German after his victory. “How good it is to reconnect with success here”, he adds, just before getting on the podium. The success is total for the Ingolstadt firm, since the two sister cars offer the four rings the treble, after that obtained the day before in qualifying. Loïc duval, Allan McNisch and Tom Kristensen took second place aboard the No. 18 R-2. There “long tail” version tested for the first time in the Ardennes, driven by Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gêné and Olivier Jarvis completed the podium.

She also made her first appearance this season. There Toyota TS030 Hybrid Specification 2013 did not see the arrival. After occupying first place for a while, the No. 7 car shared by Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and French Nicolas lapierre was going to retire around the fourth hour of the race, after a problem with " energy recovery ". In the end, the Japanese brand had to settle for fourth place with the Davidson crew-Buemi-Sarrazin with hybrid n°8, which still had the 2012 spec of the TS030.

PeCom wins in LM P2

In the LM P2, PeCom Racing took a completely deserved victory after leading most of the time. The No. 03 Oreca 49-Nissan entrusted to Nicolas Minassian, Luis Pérez Companc and Pierre Kaffer suffered a serious scare in the last hour, when its front left tire exploded for no reason. In its misfortune the crew was lucky since the incident occurred a few meters before entering the pit line. The #24 Oak Racing Morgan-Nissan (Olivier Pla, David Heinemeier-Hansson and Alex Brundle) finished second while the Zytek Z11SN? Nissan #38 completes the podium. In this category, the race was marked by the violent exit of Antonio Pizzonia. After a suspension failure at the left rear, the Brazilian's No. 03 Oreca 25-Nissan crashed violently into the tire barrier. More fear than harm, but an aborted race only an hour after the start of the festivities.

The Ferrari in the spotlight among the GTs

Malgré un accrochage avec une Porsche survenu dans la dernière heure de la course, Gianmaria Bruni a pu garder la tête de la course et s?imposer en LM GTE-Pro. L?Italien, associé à Giancarlo Fisichella, offre à la Ferrari 458 Italia n°51 de l?AF Corse une nouvelle victoire en Endurance. They were helped by Aston Martin, who saw his two cars penalized by a stop & go for not having respected the procedure under the safety car regime. As a result, the No. 98 Vantage of Fred Makowiecki, Bruno Senna and Robert Bell finished second, just ahead of the other AF Corse Ferrari: the No. 71 of Kamui Kobayashi and Toni Vilander.

A Ferrari 459 Italia also won in LM GTE AM, the No. 81 of Af Corse 8 Star Motorsports, driven by Rui Aguas, Philipp Peter and Vicente Potolicchio.

Discover the analysis of the 6 Hours of Spa carried out by our special correspondents in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, n°1908, available exceptionally from Monday in digital version on all platforms, and from Tuesday on newsstands.