Early finish in deluge for the Silverstone 6 Hours

Toyota had a good day all round.

The good news is that the new hybrid technologies gave us some great racing. The most unhappy team will be Audi, who always appear totally in control and run like clockwork. Not so today, they didn't seem quite as calm as usual. In the end they had to dig two damaged cars out of the gravel and neither car finished. This is not a regular occurrence as you know, the last time they didn't bring a car home was in 2011 at Petit Le Mans. That is some track record! 

Benoit Treluyer attempts to get his car back on the circuit

Anyway it wasn’t to be and one of the lasting memories for us was Benoit Treluyer who stuffed the #2 Audi into the scenery with some enthusiasm however he believed that he could get the car back to the pits … nope.. you need at least one wheel pointing in the right direction! The #1 Audi was taken out of contention by Lucas Di Grassi who also crashed his Audi earlier in the race. They did get that car back but it was ‘beyond economic repair’ as they say in the insurance world! Audi may have to find two new ‘tubs’ by Spa.

The race was red flagged with less than 30 minutes remaining.

The surviving Porsche was shaping up rather well in the final stages with Webber having an impressive début with Porsche.  They  had a fairly good day all round but were off the pace compared with the Toyotas and Audis but will be happy with their first outing and will take away plenty of data leading up to the next round at Spa in fortnight.  The #14 car appeared to lose a wheel after one of its pits stops and damaged the front suspension getting the car home and it was retired.

Toyota had a very good day all round really with very few serious problems other than a few spins there and there.   They seemed to be the calm well organised team rather than Audi. Maybe having Porsche lurking around rattled their cage!

LM P2 was not looking all that exciting from the word go and it didn't disappoint! We only had three out of the four cars started  and only one finished but the result was actually all to do with penalties and stop go penalties. Not ideal ..

In LM GTE Pro Porsche had a very sound start to the season. The 991 model with added aero and a more powerful engine for 2014 had a great scrap with the Ferrari of Bruni and Vilander but they faded away and the Porsches ran 1^st and 2^nd for while.  The battle was then taken up by the #97 Aston Martin driven by Turner and Mucke. At one point it seemed that Aston Martin were off the pace but the race came back to them  so they got a sound result in the end. However they may be a little concerned about their  general lack of pace this year but the result in the end wasn't too disappointing.

In LM GTE Am was won by #95 Aston Martin and  the #98 Aston Martin was second. Which was a much better result than many of us had expected. But they were saw off Porsche and Ferrari so will be happy.

With about twenty five minutes to go the weather collapsed big time and it truly chucked it down and the race ended early behind the safety car about twenty minutes early. It was a good decision as far as the drivers were concerned because the track was awash with standing water.

For us the lasting memories will be the opening fifteen minutes which was sensational. There was a some real ‘do or die’ racing that wasn't what you would expect in 6 hour race. The other one was Treluyer’s utter determination to get his ruined Audi back to the pits. He totally failed, probably fell out with the marshals but you couldn't fault his efforts. Finally these new hybrids are sensational.. great credit to the teams to meet these innovative new regulations and great credit to the drivers who have had learn how to drive the things !

So to summarise:-

LM P1

#8          Toyota Racing Toyota TS 040 Davidson/Lapierre/Buemi

#7          Toyota Racing Toyota TS 040 Wurz/Sarrazin/Nakajima

#20         Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid Bernhard/Webber/Hartley

LM P1 L

#12         Rebellion Racing Lola B12/60 Toyota Prost/Heidfeld/Beche

LM P2

#26         G-Drive Racing Morgan–Nissan Rusinov/Pla/Canal

#47         KCMG Oreca 03 Nissan Howson/Bradley/Matsuda

#27         SMP Oreca 03 Nissan Zlobin/Minassian/Mediani

GTE Pro

#92         Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR Holzer/Makowliecki/Lietz

#91         Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 911 RSR Piet/Bergemeister/Tandy

#97         Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 Turner/Mucke/

GTE Am

#95         Aston Martin Racing  Aston Martin Vantage V8 Poulson/Hansson/Thiim

#98         Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 Dalla Lana/Lamy/Nygaard

#81         AF Corse Ferrari F458 Italia Wyatt/Rugolo/Bird

Full Results can be found at fiawec.com