Shanghai WEC: Porsche seals manufacturers' crown with 1-2

With the #18 Porsche finishing in second place, 26 seconds behind the #17 car, Porsche stretched its lead in the manufacturers’ standings over Audi to 70, meaning the Stuttgart marque cannot be beaten at the final race at Bahrain.

Hartley led for the opening phase of the race, but right from the start there was excitement as the #18 919 Hybrid of Marc Lieb made contact with Andre Lotterer’s #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro and spun on to a kerb.

The incident ensured that Lieb had to then begin an awe-inspiring drive back through the field.

The opening three hours were punctuated by extremely challenging conditions for the drivers. An early safety car was followed by several Full Course Yellows to retrieve cars stranded in gravel traps.

With Audi seeming to have a slightly faster package on a fully wet track, a battle royale was played out after the first driver-change stops.

At one stage in the third hour, all four cars were covered by just 3.8 seconds as they fought a classic encounter around the Shanghai International Circuit.

After Neel Jani took over the #18 Porsche, the rapid Swiss claimed the lead just after the halfway mark when he overtook both Audis.

As the race wore on, so the track slowly dried, handing an advantage to Porsche, who were able to extract more laps from their wet-weather Michelin tyres.

However, in a fascinating game of strategy and risk, Audi switched to full slick tyres earlier, bringing them back in to contention late in the race.

There was also last-hour drama as the recovering #18 fell back behind the Audis after Romain Dumas spun at turn two. The Frenchman nonetheless redeemed himself and posted some remarkable laps to emerge from his a final ‘fuel-splash’ pit-stop in second position.

Dumas also soaked up late pressure to ward off a charging Lotterer, who started and finished the race in the #7 Audi.

The #8 Audi of Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi came home in fourth place once again after some tenacious fights throughout the race, while Toyota Racing took fifth and sixth places after several problems throughout the event. 

The #2 car of Mike Conway, Alex Wurz and Stephane Sarrazin headed the #1 Toyota TS 040 after Kazuki Nakajima lost time with a spin into the gravel at Turn 16, triggering the third Full Course Yellow period.

Signatech takes maiden LMP2 win

Taking a fine first LMP2 win in the WEC at Shanghai was the Signatech Alpine squad of Nelson Panciatici, Paul-Loup Chatin and championship newcomer Tom Dillmann.

Driving the Alpine A450b-Nissan, the French trio came good in the second half of the race after Chatin drove an excellent middle portion of the race to set up a useful gap to the chasing G-Drive Racing Ligier-Nissan entries.

Signatech had a one lap advantage over the #26 G-Drive Racing trio of Sam Bird, Julien Canal and Roman Rusinov, which led the race in the opening hour.

The second place for the #26 crew in Shanghai further extends their points lead over KCMG to 16 points, with 26 left to play for in Bahrain.

The sister G-Drive Racing Ligier-Nissan seemed to be heading for another podium position after fine early work from Pipo Derani and Gustavo Yacaman. However, a late race trip in to the gravel by Ricardo Gonzalez saw the car unclassified for the first time this season.

KCMG’s race in Shanghai was compromised early on when Nick Tandy suffered a spin, causing the Safety Car to be deployed on the first green flag lap of the race.

A subsequent gamble on to full wet tyres initially worked for the Hong Kong team in the first hour, but when the rain abated they had to switch to intermediates. 

Strong stints from Matt Howson, Richard Bradley and Tandy saw them come through to finish third.

Team SARD Morand continued its strong run of results with fourth place in class. Oliver Webb, Pierre Ragues and Chris Cumming had a trouble-free race to collect more points in the Morgan Evo-SARD.

The LMP2 class saw an entertaining cameo performance from the Pegasus Racing Morgan-Nissan in the first four hours of the race. A sensational triple stint from LMP returnee Alex Brundle saw the Michelin-shod Morgan make the most of the conditions to lead the chasing pack.

However, in the last two hours of the race, with the circuit drying, the turquoise Morgan fell back and would eventually earn Brundle and his Chinese teammates Ho-Pin Tung and David Cheng a creditable fifth-place finish.

Lietz closes on title with GTE win

Porsche Team Manthey took a third GTE Pro class victory of the season as the Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen-crewed #91 Porsche 911 RSR took a dominant win.

Lietz extended his lead in the drivers’ standings to 18 points after a conclusive victory saw the Porsche revel in the wet conditions.

It looked like being another 1-2 for the German manufacturer, but an inspired late race charge by reigning champion Gianmaria Bruni ensured that he and teammate Toni Vilander split the Manthey cars and the Patrick Pilet/Frederic Makowiecki Porsche was forced to settle for the bottom step of the class podium.

Vilander had led the early exchanges but the wetter the track became, the less the Ferrari became effective on its tyres.

It was a disappointing day for Aston Martin, as the British marque could only manage fifth and sixth, with the Alex Macdowall, Fernando Rees and Richie Stanaway heading the Darren Turner and Jonathan Adam Vantage V8.

The LMGTE Am class saw a first win of the season for the #81 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Francois Perrodo, Rui Aguas and Emmanuel Collard.

It was a close shave for the current runners-up in the LMGTE Am standings, as they survived a late race pit penalty to take the class from the Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda, Paul Dalla Lana Aston Martin by 41 seconds.

The result moves Collard, Perrodo and Aguas to within 19 points of SMP Ferrari drivers Victor Shaytar, Aleksey Basov and Andrea Bertolini, who wound up third in class.

Race results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time
1	Mark Webber  Brendon Hartley  Timo Bernhard	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid	6:07.725
2	Marc Lieb  Romain Dumas  Neel Jani	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid	+26.294
3	Andre Lotterer  Benoit Treluyer  Marcel Fassler	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 e-tron quattro	+30.311
4	Loic Duval  Oliver Jarvis  Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 e-tron quattro	+50.906
5	Alexander Wurz  Mike Conway  Stephane Sarrazin	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS040 Hybrid	+4 laps
6	Anthony Davidson  Kazuki Nakajima  Sébastien Buemi	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS040 Hybrid	+5 laps
7	Mathias Beche  Nicolas Prost	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One	+11 laps
8	Pierre Kaffer  Simon Trummer	Team ByKolles	CLM P1/01	+13 laps
9	Nelson Panciatici  Paul-Loup Chatin   Tom Dillmann	Signatech Alpine	Alpine A450b	+15 laps
10	Roman Rusinov  Sam Bird  Julien Canal	G-Drive Racing	Ligier JS P2	+16 laps
11	Matthew Howson  Nick Tandy  Richard Bradley	KCMG	ORECA 05	+16 laps
12	Oliver Webb  Chris Cumming  Pierre Ragues	Team SARD Morand	Morgan LMP2 Evo '15	+17 laps
13	Alex Brundle  Ho-Pin Tung  David Cheng	Pegasus Racing	Morgan LMP2	+17 laps
14	Richard Lietz  Michael Christensen	Porsche Team Manthey	Porsche 911 RSR	+18 laps
15	Toni Vilander  Gianmaria Bruni	AF Corse	Ferrari F458 Italia	+18 laps
16	Frederic Makowiecki  Patrick Pilet	Porsche Team Manthey	Porsche 911 RSR	+18 laps
17	Davide Rigon  James Calado	AF Corse	Ferrari F458 Italia	+19 laps
18	Alex MacDowall  Richie Stanaway  Fernando Rees	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+20 laps
19	Jonathan Adam  Darren Turner	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+20 laps
20	Ed Brown  Jon Fogarty  Johannes van Overbeek	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2	+22 laps
21	Emmanuel Collard  Rui Aguas  François Perrodo	AF Corse	Ferrari F458 Italia	+23 laps
22	Pedro Lamy  Paul Dalla Lana  Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+23 laps
23	Aleksey Basov  Andrea Bertolini  Viktor Shaitar	SMP Racing	Ferrari F458 Italia	+24 laps
24	Patrick Long  Patrick Dempsey  Marco Seefried	Dempsey Racing - Proton	Porsche 911 RSR	+24 laps
25	Gianluca Roda  Paolo Ruberti   Nicolai Sylvest	Larbre Compétition	Chevrolet Corvette C7.R	+25 laps
26	Jonny Kane  Nick Leventis  Danny Watts	Strakka Racing	Gibson 015S	+25 laps
27	Liam Griffin  Francesco Castellacci  Stuart Hall	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+30 laps
28	Khaled Al Qubaisi  Christian Ried  Klaus Bachler	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	+30 laps
R	Alexandre Imperatori   Matheo Tuscher  Dominik Kraihamer	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One
R	Pipo Derani  Gustavo Yacaman  Ricardo Gonzalez	G-Drive Racing	Ligier JS P2
R	David Heinemeier Hansson Ryan Dalziel  Scott Sharp	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2