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Audi takes overall Win, Ford GT places Second in class

By John Dagys @johndagys
May 7, 2016 at 2:37p ET
Audi has claimed victory in Saturday’s WEC Six Hours of Spa, following one of the most attrition-filled and unpredictable races in the history of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Oliver Jarvis took the No. 8 Audi R18 across the line two laps ahead of the No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Romain Dumas, which completed nearly the entire race without full hybrid power.

It was only one of the numerous issues to hit the factory prototypes, with every LMP1 hybrid having made at least one trip to the garage, if not retiring, over the course of the battle-scarred race.

The No. 8 Audi took over the lead with less than two hours to go when Kazuki Nakajima’s No. 5 Toyota TS050 Hybrid suffered engine failure, when out front by nearly 1 lap.

It came just one hour after the sister Toyota Gazoo Racing entry dropped out, also with engine failure, but triggered by an electronics issue for the No. 6 car.

Ford GT driver conscious after vicious crash in Six Hours of Spa (shown at left)

With both Porsches hitting trouble and the No. 7 Audi delayed by trips to the garage for a broken floor, temperature issues and multiple on-track incidents, it helped pave the way for the No. 8 car to take the win.

However, it wasn’t completely clear sailing for Jarvis, as he too, visited the garage in the final hour, while under a safety car, to change the car’s rear deck.

The Englishman lost one lap of his three-lap lead at that point

Jarvis and co-driver Lucas Di Grassi both claimed their first career WEC wins, alongside 2013 World Champion Loic Duval.

The No. 2 Porsche, which encountered hybrid issues with just 15 minutes into the race, finished 2nd, benefiting from the large rate of attrition from the other factory prototypes.

Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb often ran more than five seconds off the pace as a result, but logged a consistent race to retain their championship lead.

The No. 13 Rebellion R-One of Matheo Tuscher, Dominik Kraihamer and Alexandre Imperatori scored a shock third place overall finish.

Signatech Alpine claimed LMP2 honors in a barnburner of a finish.

AF Corse scored its second FIA World Endurance Championship victory in succession, having led the GTE-Pro class from start-to-finish at the WEC Six Hours of Spa.

Davide Rigon took the No. 71 Ferrari 488 GTE to the line, after Sam Bird had started from pole.

In comparison with the prototype classes, the GTE-Pro battle was relatively quiet, save for two heavy crashes through the course of the six hour race.

The first of these came near the midpoint, when Nicki Thiim was tapped into the tire barrier by Simon Dolan’s G-Drive Racing LMP2 Gibson 015S Nissan.

Upon impact with the barrier, the No. 95 Aston Martin V8 Vantage spun over, and was forced to retire with heavy damage.

With just over an hour remaining, Stefan Mücke spun out at Eau Rouge, and smashed into the barrier, destroying his No. 66 Ford GT. This brought the safety car out as the field took to the old pit exit to avoid the collision.

Both drivers were OK after their crashes, although Mücke did report a “hurt leg”.

In second position at the line was the No. 67 Ford, taken to the finish by Marino Franchitti, while the No. 97 Aston Martin was third, with Jonny Adam at the wheel. Michael Christensen’s Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR finished fourth.

James Calado looked set to win the race but he had to take his No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari into the garage with seven minutes remaining, so he and Gianmaria Bruni finished fifth.

The GTE-Am battle was between the No. 98 Aston Martin and No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari for most of the race, but it was Pedro Lamy and the AMR team that took the class honors, ahead of Patrick Long’s Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche.

Lamy started from pole position, but he was overtaken by Rui Aguas at the start. A collision at Les Combes between Aguas and a GTE-Pro Ford put the No. 98 back into the lead.

However, AF Corse survived a couple of penalties and moved back into the lead, only to once again lose it to Lamy with 33 minutes to go.

Pierre Ragues finished third for Larbre Competition, behind François Perrodo in the Ferrari. KCMG, Gulf Racing and Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing completed the class standings.

 

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