The fifth stage of the world championship World Endurance Championship held on the track in Austin, Texas. Race «6:00 Circuit of the Americas» was incredibly exciting and kept in suspense the audience and the team just before the finish.
The re-qualification was not equal crews Porsche — at the end of the qualifying rounds in the first position turned out to be Neil Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas, and became the second team-mates Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard and Mark Webber.
Toward the close of qualifying Jani showed a great circle, surpassing was the leader at that time teammate. His determination not shaken even breaking hybrid installation at the beginning of arrival — the mechanics did their best and managed to bring the car back in order. As a result, Neal for the third time in the season won the pole position.
A series of victories in the qualifications for the Porsche is now eight races — it began in November last year at the «6 Hours of Shanghai.»
Like three weeks ago, the crew at number 17 Porsche was second with little lag. Hartley, Bernhard and Webber did not have merely 0.164 seconds to the first place.
But far more important is that Audi has a large backlog appeared behind. The third time, 1.1 seconds behind Porsche became the second set crew Loic Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi and fourth qualification completed their teammate Andre Lotterer, Benoit Trelyuye and Marcel Fässler. Duet Toyota vehicles has traditionally occupied fifth and sixth place.
Successful qualification for crews transformed Porsche in a difficult race, rife with different kinds of unpleasant incidents.
He started the race with a successful attack in the first turn of Mark Webber Neil Jani. But the Australian has not calmed down and went to White Castle! Jani also could only lead the battle with Audi №8 running DiGrassi Lucas.
However the leaders enjoyed a long race — during the pit stop crew №17 slipped past their boxes and mechanics have to return the car to the place — it was worth about half a minute.
Then, at the next pitstop one of the engineers dropped the wheel — it has led to minute penalty Stop & Go for what during refueling one of the team's mechanics touched the car. But it has not brought benefit Audi — there was a real «exchange of figures», as ironically crew №8 got a minute penalty for exactly the same offense.
Opponents of the Toyota and all lost one of the crews — while overtaking of one of the circular Mike Conway crashed into a fence. The driver was not injured, but the status of the machine did not allow him to continue the fight.
As a result of all the twists and turns in the first place was another Porsche №19. However, the last (!) Hour race at Dumas, Lieb and Jani any electrical problems and as a result they finished only 12-mi.
For 34 minutes before the finish Romain Dumas drove into the pit lane with suspicion on any problem in the electrical circuits of the vehicle. Mechanics work as fast as possible, but still a waste of time was very impressive...
Prolonged stop crew brought rivals back into the lead of the race crew Porsche №17. But here fortune made nervous team and its fans — Brendon Hartley had to enter the pit lane for a quick refueling.
This allowed André Lotterer was to reduce the gap from the leader, but after the departure of the boxes from New Zealand went into the gap, being able to create a decent stock and finish the race in first place.
At the end of six hours, the crew №17 won a second consecutive victory at the stage of WEC. Second and third place was taken by the crews of Audi (Fässler, Lotterer, Trelyuye and Duval, di Grassi, Jarvis), leaving behind Toyota Davidson, Buemi and Nakajima.
In LMP2 championship victory and third place Russian team celebrated crews G-Drive Racng. Roman Rusinov / Julien Canal / Sam Bird won the first prize in its competition, and Gustavo Yakaman / Pipo Derani / Ricardo Gonzalez closed the top three LMP2.
The Russians also excelled in the class GTE Am — SMP Racing Team crew consisting of Victor Shaitar, Alexei Basov and Andrea Bertolini finished the race in first place.
The next stage of the series WEC — «6:00 Fuji» — will be held on October 11 in Japan.
