Porsche wins race, title in China

The winning #1 Porsche leads

A fourth win of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship for the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid crew of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley who also secured a second consecutive Manufacturers' crown for the German marque with one round remaining.

Porsche took a commanding victory in front of 55,000 spectators, leading for the vast majority of the six hours at the Shanghai International Circuit this afternoon.

If the winner of the race was never in serious doubt, the battle for second position raged throughout the race between the two Toyota TS050 HYBRID entries and the No.2 Porsche 919 Hybrid.

In the end it was the No.6 Toyota of Stephane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi, currently second in the Drivers' championship, who took the 18 points ahead of their team mates. Some bold decisions on tyre strategy played out to edge the Japanese cars ahead of the No.2 Porsche, but two punctures for the No.6 undoubtedly denied Toyota a chance for victory today.

In LMP2 Signatech Alpine jubilantly clinched the LMP2 championship as Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi finished in fourth position to follow up their Le Mans 24 Hours triumph with the title.

The start

The race win went the way of G-Drive Racing as the Russian entered team scored a second consecutive victory with their ORECA 05-Nissan. Will Stevens, Roman Rusinov and Alex Brundle headed home the No.30 ESM Ligier-Nissan which included WEC debutant Tom Blomqvist alongside relative newcomers Sean Gelael and Antonio Giovinazzi.

LMGTE Pro saw a Ford 1-2. In a repeat of the emphatic victory in Japan three weeks ago the #66 Ford GT of Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell finished the 6 Hours of Shanghai in first place this Sunday. Stefan Mücke and Olivier Pla raced the sister #66 Ford GT to second place sealing a dramatic 1-2 for the Ford Chip Ganassi Racing team. The team will now go into the final round in Bahrain in two weeks with a clear shot at taking the teams' title.

The LMGTE Am category will go down to the wire in Bahrain as the No.98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage V8 of Paul Dalla Lana, Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy took a fifth win of the season.

Michael Steiner, board member for research and development of Porsche AG, witnessed the title win on site and said: "The second manufacturers' world champion-ship title for Porsche is another confirmation of the 919 Hybrid's brave concept. The Weissach developed prototype joins other important Porsche race cars that were also ahead of their times, such as the 718 RS, 904, 917 or 956. They all wrote motor-sport history and significantly fired the road car development. This also goes for the 919 Hybrid. I'm proud on the entire team."

Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1, added: "This big success was only possible thanks to a great team effort. Mechanics, engineers and drivers and many more people behind the scenes were fighting hard for this, and have now been rewarded for the second time after 2015. This doesn't prove only the 919 Hybrid's potential, but also the excellence of the team. I want to thank everybody from my heart."

For the futuristic Porsche 919 Hybrid it is another chapter in a story of success. In 2014 the class one Le Mans prototype (LMP1) debuted with a unique powertrain concept. Since then Porsche has won the Le Mans 24-hour race twice, to take over-all victory number 17 in 2015 and 18 in 2016. In 2015, which was the second season for the young team, Porsche also won the manufacturers' world championship. Last year's drivers' title went to Bernhard/Hartley/Webber in a nerve wracking finale in Bahrain. With one race to go, the current championship leaders are this year's Le Mans winners Dumas/Jani/Lieb. In total, from 24 races, the Porsche 919 Hybrid has 13 race wins and 15 pole positions to its tally.

The 2nd place #6 Toyota holds off the #2 Porsche

While the Porsche Team earns laurels on race tracks, the most important successes are achieved in the Porsche Research and Development Center in Weissach near Stuttgart. There the 919 Hybrid was created in close collaboration with the road car development. It delivers a system power of over 900 HP (662 kW). Its combustion engine is a ground breaking downsizing motor. The compact two-litre V4 petrol en-gine is turbocharged and powers the rear axle with almost 500 HP (368 kW). Two different energy recovery systems – using brake energy from the front axle and ex-haust energy – feed a lithium ion battery storage. From there, on demand, an electro motor takes the energy to power the front axle with an additional over 400 HP (294 kW).

With the design of the 919's hybrid systems, the race department did pioneering work. Especially with regards to high voltage technology, the 919 works as an experimental laboratory for the voltage level of future electric road going sports cars. This way the knowledge gained on race tracks allowed the product cars' developers to introduce the four-door concept study Mission E with 800 Volt technology. The first purely electric driven road going sports car from Porsche will go into production within the current decade.

Results

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