Silverstone WEC: Audi beats Porsche to win thrilling season opener

The #7 R18 e-tron quattro ended the six-hour race 46 seconds clear of the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani, whose victory chances vanished after a late front-right puncture forced them into making an extra pit-stop.

It effectively decided what had been a close battle in favour of Audi, their duel made more tense after both German marques were reduced to a single car at the end of the second hour.

The #1 Porsche suffered a dramatic exit when Brendon Hartley tripped over the #86 GTE-Am class Porsche of Michael Wainwright at Turn 2, launching the Kiwi's car onto its side as it hurtled at high speed towards the gravel trap.

Moments later, the #8 Audi, piloted by Lucas di Grassi, also ground to halt with a hybrid system malfunction and could not be restarted.

Despite being some way off the pace of its German rivals, Toyota came through to clinch the bottom step of the podium with the #6 TS050 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Stephane Sarrazin and Kamui Kobayashi, which finished a lap down on the leaders.

The #5 car of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima had been battling the #6 machine for third, but ended up finished well down the order after a right-rear puncture destroyed the car's bodywork, spewing debris all over the circuit and bringing out the safety car.

That left Rebellion Racing to claim fourth and fifth places, the #12 R-One machine coming home 10 laps down on the leaders and beating the sister #13 car by two laps. Both had to carve their way through from the back of the field after problems in qualifying, and never troubled the hybrid machines.

The #4 ByKolles CLM was plagued by problems and ended up 11 laps down on the best of the Rebellions.

Story of the race

Although Audi converted its front-row lockout into an early lead, Lotterer in the #7 leading Oliver Jarvis in the #8, Webber demonstrated Porsche's pace advantage by picking off both R18s inside the first 30 minutes and quickly pulling away.

The Aussie had built an advantage of more than 10 seconds by the first pitstops, and Hartley continued to press home Porsche's advantage taking over the #1 car for the second stint.

By the end of the second hour, Hartley's lead over the #7 Audi had grown to over 40 seconds when the Kiwi driver's race came to an abrupt end after the contact with Wainwright - which, combined with the demise of the #8 car, led to a full course yellow lasting more than 20 minutes.

Audi's slender advantage was reduced to zero when the #5 Toyota's puncture brought out the safety car, and once the action resumed, the #7 Audi and the #2 Porsche ran in close company for several laps, the gap between the pair ebbing and flowing as the pair threaded their way through the traffic.

Dumas, however, lost precious time for Porsche, spinning after contact with Marino Franchitti's #67 Ford GT at Club, giving the #7 a buffer of around 13 seconds when Fassler took over for the final stint.

Jani managed to reduce the gap to half a dozen seconds at the start of the final hour before Porsche's victory chances were ruined by the Swiss driver's puncture. 

Fassler made Audi's seventh and final stop with 35 minutes to go, reducing the gap to Porsche to under 10 seconds, but Jani was forced to make a late splash for fuel with 10 minutes remaining, leaving Fassler to take the chequered flag by a comfortable margin of 46 seconds.

RGR Sport, Ferrari take class wins

In the LMP2 class, it was the #43 RGR Sport by Morand Ligier JS P2 of Filipe Albquerque, Bruno Senna and Ricardo Gonzalez that took the spoils on its WEC debut by 32 seconds.

The Mexican entry took the lead around half-distance, as the #31 ESM Ligier that led the early stages was delayed by a spin while Chris Cumming was at the wheel, while the polesitting #26 G-Drive Oreca lost time with a fuel pump issue and having to replace the nose late on.

Pipo Derani did enough in the closing stages to claim second in class for the #31 car, less than 10 seconds clear of Rene Rast in the #26, which had picked off the #36 Signatech Alpine of Nicolas Lapierre with 15 minutes remaining to grab the final podium spot.

Ferrari dominated the GTE Pro class, the #71 Ferrari 488 of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird leading virtually throughout to take a dominant win ahead of the #51 machine of Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado, which was forced to start last after its problems in qualifying and lost a further three minutes with an engine change stop-and-go penalty.

The #95 Aston Martin was third in class, ahead of the two Ford GTs - the #67 beating the #66 - as the #77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche dropped out of second with suspension problems.

A similar problem appeared to afflict the #88 Abu Dhabi Porsche, which had led for virtually the entire distance in the GTE-Am class, handing victory instead to the #83 Ferrari of Emmanuel Collard, Rui Aguas and Francois Perrodo.

Race results:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Laps
1	Andre Lotterer  Benoit Tréluyer  Marcel Fassler	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16	6:01:06.963	194
2	Marc Lieb  Romain Dumas  Neel Jani	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16	+46.065	194
3	Kamui Kobayashi  Mike Conway  Stéphane Sarrazin	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	+1 lap	193
4	Alexandre Imperatori  Matheo Tuscher  Dominik Kraihamer	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One	+11 laps	183
5	Nelson Piquet Jr.  Nick Heidfeld  Nicolas Prost	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion R-One	+13 laps	181
6	Ricardo Gonzalez  Filipe Albuquerque  Bruno Senna	RGR Sport by Morand	Ligier JS P2	+15 laps	179
7	Ryan Dalziel  Pipo Derani  Chris Cumming	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2	+15 laps	179
8	Roman Rusinov  René Rast  Nathanael Berthon	G-Drive Racing	ORECA 05	+15 laps	179
9	Nicolas Lapierre  Gustavo Menezes  Stéphane Richelmi	Signatech	Alpine A460	+16 laps	178
10	Jonny Kane  Nick Leventis  Danny Watts	Strakka Racing	Gibson 015S	+17 laps	177
11	Roberto Merhi  Matt Rao  Richard Bradley	Manor	ORECA 05	+17 laps	177
12	Nelson Panciatici  Ho-Pin Tung  David Cheng	Baxi DC Racing Alpine	Alpine A460	+18 laps	176
13	Vitaly Petrov  Kirill Ladygin  Viktor Shaytar	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR01	+18 laps	176
14	Scott Sharp  Ed Brown  Johannes van Overbeek	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier JS P2	+19 laps	175
15	James Rossiter  Oliver Webb  Simon Trummer	ByKOLLES Racing Team	CLM P1/01	+22 laps	172
16	Nicolas Minassian  Maurizio Mediani	SMP Racing	BR Engineering BR01	+23 laps	171
17	Anthony Davidson  Kazuki Nakajima  Sébastien Buemi	Toyota Racing	Toyota TS050 HYBRID	+24 laps	170
18	Davide Rigon  Sam Bird	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE	+27 laps	167
19	Gianmaria Bruni  James Calado	AF Corse	Ferrari 488 GTE	+28 laps	166
20	Nicki Thiim  Marco Sorensen  Darren Turner	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+28 laps	166
21	Andy Priaulx  Marino Franchitti  Harry Tincknell	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford GT '16	+29 laps	165
22	Billy Johnson  Olivier Pla  Stefan Mücke	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford GT '16	+29 laps	165
23	Emmanuel Collard  Rui Aguas  François Perrodo	AF Corse	Ferrari F458 Italia	+31 laps	163
24	Pedro Lamy  Paul Dalla Lana  Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8	+32 laps	162
25	Paolo Ruberti  Yutaka Yamagishi  Pierre Ragues	Larbre Compétition	Chevrolet Corvette C7 GT3	+33 laps	161
26	Richard Lietz  Michael Christensen	Dempsey-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	+40 laps	154
27	Christian Ried  Joel Camathias  Wolf Henzler	KCMG	Porsche 911 RSR	+40 laps	154
28	Khaled Al Qubaisi  David Heinemeier Hansson Klaus Bachler	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche 911 RSR	+41 laps	153
R	Richie Stanaway  Fernando Rees	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin Vantage V8		151
R	Tor Graves  Will Stevens  James Jakes	Manor	ORECA 05		129
R	Mark Webber  Brendon Hartley  Timo Bernhard	Porsche Team	Porsche 919 Hybrid '16		70
R	Loic Duval  Oliver Jarvis  Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi R18 E-Tron Quattro '16		69
R	Mike Wainwright  Adam Carroll  Ben Barker	Gulf Racing UK	Porsche 911 RSR		56