WEC – 3ème Podium de la saison pour Porsche aux 6 Heures de Shanghai

WEC – 3ème Podium de la saison pour Porsche aux 6 Heures de Shanghai

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Pour la troisième fois,  la Porsche 919 Hybrid a terminé une course du Championnat du Monde d’Endurance FIA (WEC) sur le podium. La sixième course à Shanghai a vu Romain Dumas / Neel Jani / Marc Lieb partir de la pole position pour terminer la course de six heures à la troisième place. La voiture sœur de Timo Bernhard / Brendon Hartley / Mark Webber est arrivée en sixième position après avoir crevé au 33 ème tour, leur coûtant beaucoup de temps. Jusqu’à cette crevaison, les deux Porsche 919 Hybrid dominaient la course.

wec-podium-porsche-6h-shanghai-009

Déroulement de  la course pour la voiture numéro 14
Romain Dumas a démarré la course depuis la pole position et menait la course pendant 21 tours avant que la voiture sœur en prenne la tête. Dumas était en course lors de la sortie de la safety car au début de la course (du 1 er tour jusqu’à la fin du 8 ème tour) et est entré aux stands pour le ravitaillement en carburant et pour changer les pneus après 33 tours.

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

A la fin du 64 ème tour, il a laissé le volant à Marc Lieb – tout en étant en troisième position derrière les Toyota qui étaient très fortes. Lieb a continué en troisième position, est passé aux stands pour ravitailler en carburant et changer les pneus après 95 tours. Il a laissé le volant à Neel Jani à la fin du 126 ème tour. Jani est entré aux stands pour les pneus et le carburant après 158 tours. Il a ensuite permis à Porsche de monter sur le podium à la troisième place.

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber

Déroulement de  la course pour la voiture numéro 20
Brendon Hartley a commencé à la troisième place sur la grille et est passé à la seconde place quand une Toyota est entrée aux stands pendant la sortie de la safety ar au début de la course. Au 22 ème tour, il a dépassé avec succès la voiture sœur avec au volant Romain Dumas. Jusqu’à son premier arrêt aux stands après 33 tours, il menait toujours la course. Cependant, seulement un tour plus tard, il était victime d’une crevaison. Le pneu a djanté et il a dû péniblement retourner aux stands en perdant du temps. La voiture est descendue à la sixième place. Après 66 tours, Timo Bernhard a pris le volant. Il est entré aux stand pour le carburant et les pneus après 97 tours et a remis la voiture à Mark Webber après 128 tours. Au 159 ème tour, la Porsche 919 Hybrid pilotée par Webber a fait pour le pit-stop final pour le carburant et les pneus et est resté sixième jusqu’à la ligne d’arrivée.

Porsche Team: Marc Lieb, Neel Jani, Romain Dumas (l-r)

Déclarations après la course
Wolfgang Hatz, Membre du conseil d’administration en charge de la R&D chez Porsche AG: “The weekend ended with a podium finish for our prototype in the LMP1 class and a one-two for the 911 RSR in the GTE category. Of course, it is a shame we had that puncture on car number 20, and the damaged tyre unfortunately dropped us back one lap. Nevertheless: pole position and a podium in LMP1 and a one-two in GT made it a very good weekend.”

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Fritz Enzinger, Vice Président du LMP1: “I think it is surprising: Here in Shanghai we have achieved our second pole position and the third podium finish in what was only our sixth race in our first season. After a difficult start to the weekend, the team managed a great qualifying and exploited the car’s potential in the race.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Andreas Seidl, Responsable de l’équipe: “A pole position and a podium on the same weekend is a new achievement for us, and it is good to see the number 14 car’s crew up there for the first time after they have been unlucky a few times. Bad luck today struck car number 20. Without that puncture we would have come third and fourth. The good result is a bit surprising because we were fighting a lack of grip from the tyres here right from the beginning. It is remarkable that our team still found such a good car set-up so that we were able to achieve P3 on our own merits. Also it is positive that again we didn’t have any technical problems. Congratulations to Toyota for another one-two result – this is the current benchmark.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Pilotes Porsche 919 Hybrid n°14
Romain Dumas (36, France): “My stint was great. I had a good start and was able to stay in P1 for the first 21 laps. Later I couldn’t do a lot more but was able to keep in third place. The car was running well in the beginning and I was leading from my teammate Brendon, although he was on different tyres because we wanted to evaluate the differences. The car was working very well, but towards the end of the stint we were lacking performance, especially in medium speed corners like in the second sector. However, we succeeded in minimising this problem and the others couldn’t overtake us because we are so quick on the straights.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Neel Jani (30, Suisse): “I am very happy we finally managed to get on that podium after it had seemed to be within reach several times. In the beginning I had to fight understeer, but then the car’s balance recovered and I was able to defend against the Audi. At the very end of the race it was all about bringing the car home safely in P3 without taking too much of a risk, and this luckily worked out.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Marc Lieb (34, Allemagne): ”I did the middle stints and I’m quite satisfied. It went well and the lap times were quite consistent. I managed to maintain the gap to the Audis and didn’t lose time to the Toyotas. I even came a little bit closer, but they’re just too quick for us to be able to get them.“

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber

Pilotes Porsche 919 Hybrid n°20
Timo Bernhard (33, Allemagne): “The middle stints I did went fine, I had no noteworthy problems, and for sure we’ve learnt a lot for 2015. Twice I struggled with the traffic when lapping other cars, but our major problem obviously was the puncture. It caused us to drop back to sixth and this was really a shame. Otherwise for sure we would have been fighting for another podium.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Brendon Hartley (24, Nouvelle-Zélande): “It was a pretty good start to the race, nice and clean in the first few laps. Romain and I stayed out during the safety car period. Afterwards we had a nice little battle, which was fun. The car felt great. Unfortunately, right after the first stop we had a puncture – it must have been debris on the track. This was very unlucky as we lost quite a lot of time.”

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb

Mark Webber (38, Australie): ”We had a lot of catching up to do today and in the end it was just too much for us to gain a better position. It was bad luck that Brendon had that puncture and, furthermore, that it happened in the beginning of the lap so he had a lot of slow driving to do to get back to the pits. That really hurt our race, but despite this we were competitive. Brendon and Timo did a great job as did the entire crew. I think this was almost a better team effort than our third place recently in Fuji.

Porsche 919 Hybrid, Porsche Team: Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, Mark Webber

Résultats de la course
1 Buemi/Davidson (Toyota), 188 tours en 6h 01m 15.319s
2 Nakajima/Sarrazin/Wurz (Toyota) + 1m 12.564s
3 Dumas/Jani/Lieb (Porsche) – 1 tour
4 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) – 1 tour
5 Di Grassi/Duval/Kristensen (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) – 1 tour
6 Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (Porsche) – 2 tours
7 Beche/Heidfeld/Prost (Rebellion-Toyota) – 8 tours
8 Belicchi/Kraihamer/Leimer (Rebellion-Toyota) – 8 tours
9 Canal/Pla/Rusinov (Ligier-Nissan) – 11 tours
10 Dalziel/Gonzalez/Sharp (HPD-Honda) – 14 tours

Classement constructeurs
1. Toyota, 226 points
2. Audi, 197 points
3. Porsche, 133 points

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