2014 FIA World Endurance Championship – 6 Hours of Silverstone Recap

Also published at The Roar

Imagine how Australia’s Mark Webber must be feeling right about now? A week removed from his debut effort for the Porsche factory team in the 6 Hours of Silverstone, the opening round of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship, and he’s made the podium, thanks to – rather than, as in the past, in spite of – his team mates.

Long gone now is Sebastien Vettel, the German Formula One champion who isn’t exactly Australia’s most favourite international sportsman, and at Porsche, who debuted their new 919 hybrid prototype, Webber has two brilliant teammates, up-and-coming New Zealander Brendon Hartley and the experienced German, Timo Bernhard, who appear to complement him perfectly.

Certainly, the Webber-Bernhard-Hartley trio is a swift one, netting a third place in the first race for the new 919 prototype, and with a six-hour event at Spa-Francorchamps to come before the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, the sky appears to be the limit. If the new Porsche can maintain it’s reliability at Circuit de la Sarthe, watch out, because they showed at Silverstone, a track just as fast as Le Mans, that the car has speed to burn.

Webber hailed the third place finish (two laps down to the winner) as a “massive step” for the German manufacturer, who hasn’t had a car in world sports car racing since the Porsche RS Spyder that saw some success in the American Le Mans Series – 8 win, including a memorable outright victory in the 2008 12 Hours of Sebring – when it was run by the powerhouse Team Penske outfit. Ironically, two of Penske’s drivers then, the Frenchman Romain Dumas and Bernhard remain with the Porsche team. On loan to Audi in 2010, they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Mike Rockenfeller.

As good as Porsche was, the real story from the premiere prototype (LMP1) class was the stunning 1-2 finish for Toyota. Actually, that was only half the story, but a good one to tell: the #8 TS040 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Nicolas Lapierre won by a full lap over their sister car, the #7, driven by Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Stephane Sarrazin.

The other half of the Silverstone narrative was the rugged outing for the powerhouse Audi squad. You never count out a team whose cars are driven by sports car legends like nine-time Le Mans overall winner Tom Kristensen, but it was a disaster of a day for the German team, whose cars both failed to finish a race that was red-flagged about half an hour short of it’s scheduled end, due to a torrential downpour that left standing water on the circuit.

Lucas Di Grassi, who took Scot Alan McNish’s seat alongside Kristensen and Loic Duval in 2014, crashed the #1 car at Woodcote corner in the first hour of the race, as drizzle affected the circuit, and the #2 of Le Mans winners Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler spun at Stowe, an error compounded by Treluyer when he smacked the inside wall hard at Copse. He managed to keep moving, albeit momentarily, only to become beached in the gravel, the front suspension on the R18 prototype demolished.

So, it was Toyota’s day, and a famous victory that was almost handed to them when the two Audis crashed out. Certainly, the Japanese squad showed speed across the weekend, but they were helped by the weather conditions, which contributed to the slick track and dangerous conditions.  Webber’s Porsche deserved it’s third place finish. The WEC debutants weren’t quite able to run with the big dogs at Silverstone, but that should change.

You can only imagine that the twin failure in England will spur the Audi squad on, and, provided they win the uphill battle to repair their two cars in time for the 6 hour race at Spa-Francorchamps in early May, they figure to be tough to beat. Both cars sustained pretty serious chassis damage, and it’s not certain that they will be ready to race in Belgium. Audi might have to use chassis from it’s test cars.

At the same time as the two primary cars are being repaired, Dr Wolfgang Ulrich’s squad is preparing it’s third car, to be driven by Oliver Jarvis, Marco Bonanomi and Filipe Albuquerque for the race, as preparation for a stout three-car assault on Le Mans.

There is a lot going on in Audi land, that’s for sure, but this is a crack unit, and only a fool would write them off at this early stage. No team with the calibre of drivers that Audi boasts are ever going to be out of the fight. Had the weather in Silverstone been better, we may well have been dissecting a dominant Audi 1-2 victory.

In more pleasing news for Porsche, they dominated the GTE-PRO class, with the #92 Porsche 911 RSR of Manthey Racing (driven by Frederic Makowiecki, Marco Holzer and Richard Lietz) crossing the line to take the checkered flag in the premiere Grand Touring class. When the factory Corvettes join the fray for Le Mans, expect a battle of epic proportions.

The LMP2 class was won by Oak Racing’s Nissan-powered Morgan prototype driven by Olivier Pla, Roman Rusinov and Julien Canal. The GTE-AM category was an Aston Martin benefit. The famous British marque finished 1-2 ahead of the closest Ferrari.

The next race of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship – the Six hours of Spa- Francorchamps in Belgium – takes place on May 3, and will be broadcast live in Australia on Foxtel’s SPEED Channel.