MOTORSPORT: World title hat-tricks for Porsche

Porsche will bow out of top-level prototype sports car racing this month with a hat-trick of world titles in both the manufacturer and drivers’ championships.

It clinched them again at the weekend’s Six Hours of Shanghai, even though Toyota won the race – and has now won as often (four times) as the German marque in the World Endurance Championship this year.

However, it was Porsche that was victorious in the all-important 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in June, achieving another hat-trick there, while Toyota is yet to win that classic – although it now looks like having the top prototype class to itself next year.

This year’s WEC concludes in Bahrain with another six-hour race on November 18.
That will be the Porsche factory’s finale with its 919 Hybrids before concentrating on Formula E, the electric open-wheeler series, from 2019.

There is also speculation about Porsche returning to Formula 1, perhaps from 2021 – with a decision on that perhaps hinging on the outcome of a meeting of the F1 Strategy Group tomorrow (November 7).

Motorsport’s world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), and F1 owner Liberty Media’s motorsport director Ross Brawn have already foreshadowed engine regulations for grand prix racing beyond 2020.

Mercedes, which has dominated the four years of the hybrid era, and Ferrari, the sport’s most enduring team, are not happy with the proposed rules, the Italian team threatening to quit F1 if they are introduced.

At tomorrow’s meeting American-owned Liberty is expected to unveil more of its plans, including a potential budget cap on teams, a new governance structure for the sport and an overhaul of the sporting and commercial system.

Meanwhile, New Zealanders Brendon Hartley and Earl Bamber and German Timo Bernhard – Porsche’s 24 Hours of Le Mans victors in June - are the year’s WEC champion drivers.

Hartley and Bernhard won the title two years ago with Australian Mark Webber, while this is Bamber’s first world crown.

The manufacturers’ title looked like being prolonged until Bahrain, but with 35 minutes to go in Shanghai Toyota’s race leader, Argentinean Jose Maria Lopez, made contact with a GTE Pro-class Porsche 911 RSR driven by Austrian Richard Lietz that damaged the left-rear suspension and driveshaft of the TS050 Hybrid.

While the other Toyota – shared by Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi, Britain’s Anthony Davidson and Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima – inherited the win, the Bamber-Hartley-Bernhard Porsche moved up into second, securing the manufacturers’ championship.

The other 919 Hybrid – driven by Switzerland’s Neel Jani, German Andre Lotterer and Britain’s Nick Tandy, last year’s world champions for Porsche – finished third. It was the faster of the two on the day, but a throttle sensor issue in the first hour cost it more than a minute.

The Porsches were a lap behind the victorious Toyota, while the other Toyota ended up seven laps down after repairs.

Australia’s 2016 Carrera Cup champion Nick Foster achieved his best result in the WEC – second in the GTE-Am class in the Porsche 911 RSR (991) he drives for Gulf Racing.

Foster’s co-drivers are Brit Ben Barker, the 2010 Gold Star winner as Australia’s Formula 3 champion and a 2014 class winner at the Bathurst 12-Hour in a Porsche 997 (with Bamber and another New Zealander, Stephen Grove), and Abu Dhabi’s Khaled Al Qubaisi.

The Gulf Porsche benefited from an early three-car incident and was beaten by a lap by an V8 Vantage that gave Aston Martin Racing its 50th win since the team’s inception in 2004 and third this year.

Ferrari sealed its fifth GT manufacturers’ title in six years, and second with the 488 GTE, although a Ford won the GTE Pro class in Shanghai.

Porsche has attributed its LMP1 class titles this year to the introduction of a high-downforce aero kit after Le Mans with which it immediately won the six-hour races at the Nurburgring in Germany, in Mexico and at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, all courtesy of Bamber, Hartley and Bernhard.

“When we left Le Mans we were not really happy with the performance that we showed, independent of the result,” Porsche team principal Andreas Seidl said.

“The six weeks after Le Mans there was a real big push from inside the team to correct that.

“We had two tests in Barcelona in July and this really made the difference for the second half of the season.”

Seidl admitted there was an element of luck in the crucial second place in Shanghai but added: “You always need to be in a position that you can benefit from luck.

“It’s a sensational story to have won all these titles and races (16) three years in a row.
“At the same time it’s a big relief for the entire team that we could seal the two championships with one race remaining.

“It was not an easy situation in recent months, especially after the announcement was made to stop after this season – but we kept everyone focused and built up a points gap in the middle of the season.”

Only Volkswagen stablemate Audi, which pulled out of the WEC at the end of last year, has won more LMP1 races (17) than Porsche, while Toyota has now won 15.

However, Porsche has had the most outright victories in the history of Le Mans – 19 to Audi’s 13 – while Mazda is the only Japanese manufacturer to have won there, in 1991.
Hartley, 27, and Bernhard, 36, have been part of 12 of the Porsche race wins in the WEC in the past four years.

“To share a second world championship with Timo and a first with Earl, who I grew up racing with and grew up on a farm with, makes this an incredible story,” said Hartley, who has driven two Formula 1 grands prix recently and is poised for a full season next year with Red Bull secondary GP team Toro Rosso.

“It is amazing to finish (clinch) it [the WEC] here (in Shanghai, where Porsche has sealed the three consecutive manufacturer titles) and be world champions again.

“Big thanks to Porsche – they really stepped up after Le Mans. We had really strong results.

“We had one set of tyres less than all the other LMP1 cars (in Shanghai, after Bamber flat-spotted a set of Michelins in qualifying).

“It was kind of game over for us (in terms of a race victory), but we definitely have had an incredible year.

“Taking the world championship title after winning Le Mans – it might take a while until it all sinks in.”

Bamber, also 27, said: “World champion … it just sounds amazing. Super special. To do it in Shanghai, where I started racing with Porsche in Carrera Cup Asia, is special too.

“We did the whole race on three sets of tyres. We just had to stay clean because we didn’t have the pure pace. We didn’t have a chance against the Toyota. The task was to bring it home in third position, which ultimately became second.

“We’re going to push hard in Bahrain as we don’t want Toyota to finish with more victories than us this year.”

Porsche has arranged full-time GT drives for Bamber and Tandy in America next year, and will keep all its other LMP1 drivers under contract – meaning Hartley may race GTs as well as in F1.

Setback for Intercontinental GT Challenge
The Intercontinental GT Challenge – in which the Bathurst 12-Hour was the first round – is over prematurely following the cancellation of the Sepang 12 Hours.

The Malaysian event, scheduled for December 10, was scrapped because there were barely a dozen cars entered.

The Stephane Ratel Organisation (SRO) that runs GT racing globally took over the Sepang 12 Hours ahead of the 2015 race, but crowds – and now entries – have been poor.

“SRO considers an endurance event featuring less than 18 cars unviable,” the Sepang event’s general manager Benjamin Franassovici said.

Japan’s Suzuka 10 Hours was to replace the Malaysian round in the Intercontinental GT Challenge next year anyway.

The cancellation of next month’s event means that – after the Bathurst 12-Hour in February, 24 Hours of Spa in Belgium in July and California Eight Hours at Laguna Seca last month – Audi is the champion manufacturer for the second straight year and German Markus Winkelhock the champion driver.