WEC – Toyota wins brilliantly ahead of Porsche at Silverstone

The 6 Hours of Silverstone, contested in the rain, offered a great fight in LMP1 even if the premier category was quickly marred by accidents. Lucas di Grassi was the first to make a mistake by ending up in the rail at the wheel of the Ausi n°1. There Porsche No. 14 of Jani-Dumas-Lieb also retired after losing the left front wheel which preceded a transmission failure. Rebellion Racing then encountered misfortune with its Belicchi-Kraihamer Lola B12/60 which suffered from a serious gearbox problem. Beche-Heidfeld No. 12Cheers finished at the foot of the podium.

In the meantime Toyota n°8 led by Stone-Buemi-Davidson took the lead in the race ahead of his sister car #7 driven by Sarrazin-Wurz-Nakajima. The TS040s did not change position until the finish was given half an hour from the end due to excessive rain. The Japanese manufacturer achieved a perfect result for this first event of the season, unlike Audi which suffered a second retirement following an accident involving Benoît Tréluyer who hit the rail head-on after oversteering on a braking. Porsche thus takes the last step of the podium for its first race in WEC with the 919 Hybrid n°14 from Webber-Bernard-Hartley.

The LMP2 category, deserted at the start of the season with only four cars, was won by the No. 26 Morgan-Nissan of G-Drive Racing driven by Pla-Rusinov-Canal. The winners took advantage of a penalty imposed on the Oreca 03-Nissan from the KCMG team of Howson-Bradley-Matsuda.

Porsche is off to a strong start in GTE Pro as the 911 RSRs scored a double. The No. 92 of Makowiecki-Holzer-Lietz finished ahead of the No. 91 of Pilet-Bergmeister-Tandy, having been advantaged by its offbeat strategy which benefited it during the red flag. Aston Martin completes the podium with the #97 Vantage of Mücke-Turner. The British manufacturer scores a double in GTE Am with the #95 of Thiim-Heinemeier Hansson-Poulsen ahead of the #98 of Lamy-Nygaard-Dalla Lana.

Discover the analysis of the 6 Hours of Silverstone carried out by our special correspondent in issue 1957 of AUTOhebdo, available from tomorrow evening in digital version on all platforms, and from Wednesday on newsstands.