Toyota wins topsy-turvy 6 Hours of Silverstone

Toyota Gazoo Racing scored its first victory since the WEC round at Fuji last year to open the 2017 FIA WEC season at Silverstone today. The No. 8 Toyota TS050 of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima snatched the lead from the No. 2 Porsche LMP1 Team 919 in the final 15 minutes to cap off a thrilling sequence in the final hour and take an early lead in the points standings.

This battle is just fierce!@Toyota_Hybrid#8@Sebastien_buemiVs@Porsche_Team#2@BrendonHartley#6hSilverstonepic.twitter.com/pk7pk53hNu— FIA WEC (@FIAWEC)April 16, 2017

“We were expecting to be a quite a bit quicker than Porsche, so we’re actually scared a bit!” Buemi admitted after the race. “We have lots of work to do.

“At the end, I knew I had the advantage of fresher tires, but I wasn’t expecting to come out eight seconds behind! Porsche were quicker on the straights, so I had to try something in the tighter sections. It’s been a long time since our crew won, so we’re very happy.

• 6 Hours of Silverstone results

“Porsche were also quicker than us in the pit stops, they made up a lot of time, so we need to improve there.”

Despite running the high-downforce aerodynamic package with its pair of TS050s, topping all three practice sessions and scoring pole position, it wasn't an easy ride for the Toyota team, which early in the race sat comfortably 1-2. Throughout the race various slip-ups, issues and weather changes allowed Porsche to remain in contention, prompting the No. 2 squad to gamble and not take tires at the final round of stops, promoting Brendon Hartley and his teammates Earl Bamber and Timo Bernhard to the lead.

With time winding down, Hartley was chased down by Buemi – who was on fresh rubber – the Swiss fighting from over eight seconds back to dive up the inside at the International Hairpin through traffic to take the top spot. He later crossed the line six seconds ahead of the chasing 919 Hybrid to claim the win, the points and the historic RAC Tourist Trophy for the trio and a win for Davidson on home soil.

Finishing third behind the No. 2 was the sister No. 1 Porsche 919 of Nick Tandy, Andre Lotterer and Neel Jani, which was 49 seconds back from the front-runners despite staying in contention and leading the race briefly during pit cycles.

It was the second Toyota which provided the biggest drama in the class. After leading during the opening laps, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez and Mike Conway would finish 23rd overall.

The car dropped out of contention in the second hour due to a software glitch and later a roll-bar problem, before WEC debutant and multiple World Touring Car Champion Lopez went head-on into the barriers at Copse with light rain coming down with two and a half hours left.

Incredibly, the Argentinian was able to drive the car back to the pits with most of its front-end ripped off, where it was repaired. The team lost an hour in the garage, but the car did return to the race and finish, scoring valuable points. Lopez, however, was checked at the on-track medical facility before being transferred to a local hospital for scans. He was later released. 

The subsequent Safety Car period which the incident caused did nullify the No. 8’s comfortable lead of over 20 seconds, allowing both Porsches to race for the win in the second half. Prior to that both Porsches were able to match the Toyota on pace at points, allowing them to stay on the lead lap and capitalize from the opportunity created by Lopez’s incident.

In the end, Toyota’s leading car prevailed. Porsche will leave Silverstone confident however, its high-downforce package – that will likely debut after Le Mans – potentially able to make its 919s even more competitive later in the season during the fly-away rounds.

In the LMP2 ranks, it was China’s Jackie Chan DC Racing (pictured) that prevailed. In an impressive second half of the race, Oliver Jarvis and Thomas Laurent kept the team’s No. 38 Oreca 07 in contention before taking the lead in the final stint, crossing the line 19 seconds ahead of the other runners.

“We sacrificed the start of our race to be stronger at the finish,” Jarvis said. “We saved a couple of sets of tires to be able to push later and it worked. The team was excellent and both Ho-Pin [Tung], and Thomas were faultless.

“It’s my first win in LMP2, Ho-Pin’s first WEC win and Thomas’s too; let’s not forget he is the youngest driver in the race and this is his WEC debut. I hope this is the start of a real run.”

It was a hotly-contested class battle, which saw the winners’ rivals at Signatech Alpine and Vailliante Rebellion all control the race from the front at points.

The No. 31 Rebellion Oreca of Julian Canal, Nicolas Prost and Bruno Senna finished second, but only just after a late charge by Matthieu Vaxiviere in the TDS Racing car saw the pair cross the line within two seconds of each other.

The TDS Racing trio of Vaxiviere and fellow Frenchmen Emmanuel Collard and Francois Perrodo may have earned "driver of the day" honors in their first LMP2 race as a trio. Bronze-graded Perrodo in particular impressed, setting times similar to the front-runners during his prototype debut to score a podium.

Just off the podium was the Signatech Alpine A470 of 2016 LMP2 champions Gustavo Menezes and Nicolas Lapierre, joined by British driver Matt Rao. The car led the class convincingly for the opening half of the race, Lapierre and Menezes holding station up front until Rao’s first stint after the halfway mark. In changeable conditions the Briton couldn’t match the pace of those around him, and faded after the Safety Car went in.

Another team that will leave Silverstone disappointed is G-Drive Racing (pictured), which finished fifth after an issue with its door cost the Russian team valuable time in the pits. It left Alex Lynn, Romain Rusinov and Pierre Thiriet playing catch-up for the majority of the race after starting from pole.

It was GTE Pro which provided the fans with the best door-to-door action of the race. Three of the four manufacturers in the class raced for the win, and led at various points, but it was Ford which would come out on top.

The No. 67 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK GT of Andy Priaulx, Harry Tincknell and Pipo Derani – the 2016 Rolex 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours winner on his debut for the team – took the win despite a persistent issue that forced the team to take an out-of-sync stop. Its passenger-side door kept flying open in the first half, and later at the very end of the race, but it didn’t prevent the trio from fighting back to the lead in the closing stages.

“I can’t believe it, we were out of the sequence,” exclaimed Tincknell after getting out of the car at the end. “When I got in we were at the back, last or second last, but didn’t give up and won. We struck lucky with the Safety Car, which gave us a shot.”

It was a Ford 1-2 for the majority of the six hours, but the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari, and No. 91 Porsche GT Team 911 RSR were in the mix at points; finishing second and third behind the winners. The No. 66 Ford, which had the cleaner run of the two Ganassi-entered cars but couldn’t match the pace of the top three at the end, came home fourth after holding a convincing 21-second lead in the fourth hour.

Behind, the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari was in the wars and finished fifth after a costly collision with the No. 13 Rebellion Oreca, while Aston Martin Racing’s Vantages were nowhere on pace, finishing sixth and seventh. The No. 92 Porsche meanwhile, was the only retirement in the race; the new car’s engine expired in fiery style just after the halfway mark.

GTE Am was just as unpredictable as Pro, with the result decided by a controversial ending.

Signaporean team Clearwater Racing eventually took the win on its WEC debut. Its Ferrari 488 GTE benefitted from a last-lap incident between the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage of Pedro Lamy and Spirit of Race Ferrari of Miguel Molina while battling for the first place.

The side-to-side collision between the Aston and Ferrari at Stowe allowed Matt Griffin to jump from third to the lead just a few corners from the flag and hand himself and teammates Keita Sawa and Mok Weng Sun a place on the top step of the podium.

This all came after Griffin had already muscled his way past Lamy in the final hour, running side-by-side down the old pit straight to take the a surprise lead before having to make a splash-and-dash with 15 minutes remaining, dropping him to third.

“On the last lap I was about half a second back [from the lead battling pair] and was planning where I might make a move,” said Griffin. “Then all hell broke loose and I just went for it through the middle full ‘Days of Thunder’ style.

“I came through to finish the lap and asked the guys how long was left to be told that it was the finish and we’d won.”

Lamy limped home second, while the Spirit of Race Ferrari retired, stranded in the gravel. The chaos promoted the Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche to third.

The second round of the 2017 FIA WEC season is set to take place on May 6th in Belgium, with the traditional Le Mans 24 Hours "dress rehearsal" at Spa-Francorchamps.