WEC: Webber, Bernhard, Hartley dominant in China

Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley dominated the Shanghai round of the World Endurance Championship to secure a second consecutive manufacturers' crown for Porsche.

The reigning world champions' 919 Hybrid led from halfway around the opening lap and was in control of the race from the beginning on the way to a 59-second victory.

Hartley was able to pull a gap on the chasing pack during his opening double stint and then Bernhard was able to extend the advantage over teammate Marc Lieb during the third stint.

Toyota maintained its faint hopes of winning the drivers' crown with second place for Kamui Kobayashi, Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway, despite twice being delayed by a slow puncture. They were back ahead of the Porsche of Lieb, Dumas and Neel Jani before the final round of pit stops.

Both Toyota TS050 Hybrids double-stinted their tires through a second short stint at the end, which allowed Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima to jump ahead of the second Porsche.

"It wasn't an easy race; the first stint I was pushing hard to try to make a gap," Hartley said. "It was a tricky race tactically and if the No. 6 Toyota hadn't had its punctures, I would have been a lot hotter at the end."

Audi had a disastrous race at the first WEC round since the announcement of its withdrawal from the prototype ranks.

Loic Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Olivier Jarvis were unable to keep their faint hopes of the title alive with a distant fifth place. Di Grassi ran second for all but the first three laps of the opening couple of stints, but a refueling problem at the first round of pit stops when the car failed to get a full load of fuel resulted in an early second stop.

The problem was not solved at the second stop, which resulted in the car losing contact with the Porsches and Toyotas.

A clash between Jarvis and Audi teammate Benoit Treluyer meant a trip into the garage for repairs that left the car three laps down at the finish. Treluyer and co-drivers Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler were never in the hunt and also lost time in the garage on the way to sixth in the other Audi.

The ByKolles squad took privateer LMP1 honors with the CLM-AER P1/01 shared by Pierre Kaffer, Oliver Webb and Simon Trummer after the solo Rebellion-AER R-One encountered engine problems.

G-Drive Racing dominated LMP2 on the way to a second victory of the season for Will Stevens, Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov aboard its Jota-run ORECA-Nissan 05. They finished a lap up on the Extreme Speed Motorsport Ligier-Nissan JSP2 of Tom Blomqvist, Antonio Giovinazzi and Sean Gelael.

Fourth place for Signatech Alpine trio Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Gustavo Menezes was enough to give them the P2 crown even though they finished behind closest rivals Bruno Senna, Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Gonzales in the RGR Sport Ligier.

Ford dominated GTE Pro to take a second consecutive one-two. Andy Priaulx and Harry Tincknell again took honors in front of Stefan Mucke and Olivier Pla, whose Ford GT was delayed by a slow puncture.

Aston Martin drivers Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana took a fifth class victory of the season in GTE Am.

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Originally on Autosport.com