Practice and qualifications were held in difficult weather conditions. Because of the snowfall, even the organizers were forced to cancel the last training session. However, it should be noted that the first two practices of the best times in the absolute owned cars Porsche: Timo Bernhard score of 1.42,182. And this despite the fact that Audi presented the new season a brand new car Audi R18. The team from Stuttgart until it was nothing to worry about.
In the LMP2 category of the best time in training showed the team G-Drive Racing: René Rast drove the fastest lap of 1.50.428.
The first surprises began during qualifying, when pole position and second place at the start won two Audi, sliding the winners of last season's Porsche team on the second line of the grid. The third line got the Toyota.
It is not the first year in the championship Russian team taking part: SMP Racing and G-Drive Racing. Both appear in the LMP2 standings. Crew №26 G-Drive Roman Rusinov qualified in eighth position in the overall standings, showing again the best time in the category, two crew SMP Racing (qualifications were Nicolas Minassian and Vitaly Petrov, who this year serves WEC) — on the 11th and 12 positions respectively.
In the race, which was held on Sunday, the battle for first place, expectedly developed between Audi and Porsche. But already in the first half of the competition for both teams dropped out one by one the crew. Mark Weber on Porsche # 1 at the start managed to circumvent the Audi # 7 and get off at the first position, followed by Brendon Hartley increased the gap.
However, not having calculated the trajectory of overtaking it provoked a serious accident with the Gulf Racing Porsche 911 the RSR, slid on the edge and almost overturned. Fortunately, both drivers escaped injury. And after a short time due to problems with the hybrid setup goes Audi # 8. The two remaining cars on the track rivals were constantly fighting among themselves. In the third hour of the race Benoît Tréluyer in the Audi is still ahead of Marc Lieb, who, in turn, hurt Ford GT # 67. In addition to this, closer to the finish line, the Porsche wheel punctures.
As a result, all the ups and downs on the road crew of Audi Sport Team Joest's a part of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer first crossed the finish line 6 hour marathon Silverstone, winning quite incredible in its glow battle of Porsche. But as a result of finishing the technical inspection team Audi crew was disqualified due to non-compliance of the car technical regulations.
This means that the victory in the race, and the maximum number of points transferred to the nearest rival — Porsche 919 Hybrid # 2 crew Romain Dumas, Neil Jani and Marc Lieb, the second place goes to Toyota TS050 HYBRID Gazoo Racing # 6 (Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Stefan Sarrazin), and the third position now takes private team Rebellion R-One №13.
No less dramatic race evolved in LMP2. It won RGR Sport team crew, speaking under the flag of Mexico, as part of Filipe Albuquerque, Ricardo Gonzalez and Bruno Senna, second place went to the team ESM # 31, the crew of the Russian team G-Drive Racing Roman Rusinov, in the lead almost all of the race, iz due to technical problems only managed to finish in third place.
From the beginning, there were problems at the crew # 27 (Maurizio median and Nicolas Minassian): a few minutes after the start had unscheduled stop in the pits and during the race the crew received a fine for violation of the rules of the pit stop and travel outside of the track. As a result — the position at the end of the peloton.
A small crew of 37 is caused by the result as a number of reasons. Affected contact Victor Shaitar on the track and more global problems.
Vitaly Petrov: «Of course, we can not be satisfied with the result, because the backlog from the rivals was great. We can see the reason in the fact that this year's Dunlop has greatly changed the composition of the rubber and it behaves differently in the race. Many teams have managed to achieve the necessary adjustments, we also have more work to do. I am sure that for the next race we will be more prepared. »
In the class LM GTE first to cross the finish line of Sam Bird and David Rigon, who spoke for the AF Corse team at the new Ferrari 488GTE №71. James Calado and Jeanmarie Bruni, received 3-minute penalty for engine replacement came to the finish line second.
Debuting in the WEC Silverstone British team Chip Ganassi cars at Ford GT # 67 and # 66 finished the race in 4th and 5th places in their category.
In the category of LMGTE Am victory went to Ferrari 458 Italia # 83 of Emmanuel Collard, Francois Perrodo and Rui Aguas.
The next stage of the championship will be held on the Belgian track of Spa-Francorchamps on 6–7 May.
Photo: fiawec.com, WEC teams
