Aston Martin takes shock win as rain can’t beat Toyota

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LMP1 – The Number 7 Toyota overhauls teammates

Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria take second straight win at wet Shanghai…..

Toyota Gazoo Racing took a second consecutive 1-2 finish at today’s 6 Hours of Shanghai after a challenging race held in wet conditions.

Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose-Maria Lopez took the chequered flag in the No.7 Toyota TS 050 HYBRID to register back-to-back victories after their Fuji success last month.

They beat the No.8 Toyota driven by Fernando Alonso, Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi by just 1.14s to close to within five points of their stablemates in the title chase.

The No.8 Toyota TS 050 HYBRID claimed second after losing time midway through the race during one of the five Safety Car periods.

This cost Fernando Alonso approximately 25-seconds and allowed Kobayashi to build what turned out to be a race defining lead.

Completing the podium and registering the first overall visit to the podium for a Russian entered team was SMP Racing.

The No.11 crew of Jenson Button, Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin fought off the No.1 Rebellion Racing crew of Andre Lotterer, Neel Jani and Bruno Senna during a race long battle.

Button celebrated his first ever WEC podium to make it two celebrations in as many weeks after he took the Super GT title in Japan last weekend.

The LMP1 privateers had their most competitive weekend of the Super Season so far after EoT modifications were completed ahead of the Shanghai event.

45,000 race fans enjoyed the Shanghai action over the weekend despite the difficult conditions ensuring that they witnessed another epic WEC encounter.

Hometown Heroes Take Famous LMP2 Win

LMP2 saw a hard-fought and popular home victory for the No.38 Jackie Chan DC Racing crew of Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Stephane Richelmi.

Claiming their second victory of the season, the trio survived several technical and on-track scares to take the maximum points and displace the Signatech Alpine Matmut crew at the top of the points table.

Contending with a gear issue and also an off-track excursion for Aubry in the final hour of the race, all three headed off the opposition to send their local fans home ecstatic at an accomplished performance.

Taking their best result of the Super Season so far, Pastor Maldonado, Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez took second position after leading in the initial green flag running early in the race.

Rounding out the podium was Signatech Alpine Matmut’s Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet. Lapierre capitalised on a late incident involving TDS Racing and a GT car to snatch third position.

Aston Martin seals first win of season in LMGTE

Aston Martin Racing overcame extremely challenging conditions throughout today’s 6 Hours of Shanghai, round 5 of the FIA World Endurance Championship Super Season, to claim a well-deserved first LMGTE victory for the new Vantage.

The No.95 of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen celebrated the first WEC win for the British manufacturer in the top GTE category since the 6 Hours of Mexico last year, and until the final 30 minutes it looked as though the team might even secure a 1-2 finish.

Following a Safety Car period – the fifth of a race which also included two red flag stoppages for heavy rain and unsafe track conditions – the No.91 Porsche 911 RSR of Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni jumped ahead of the No.97 Aston Martin (Alex Lynn/Maxime Martin) in deteriorating conditions to take second in class.

The Porsche GT Team in fact came through to scoop two podium places, the No.92 Porsche of Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen passing the No.97 Aston which was on older tyres.

AF Corse Ferrari’s No.51 of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi came through after a difficult weekend to finish 5th in class ahead of the sister No.71 car. Ford Chip Ganassi Racing had a less successful weekend in Shanghai than in the past, while BMW was on this occasion not able to repeat its Fuji podium (on its first wet tyre run ever), both teams being awarded post race penalties for differing infringements.

Dempsey Proton Racing end the weekend on top

It was a Porsche 1-2-3 in LMGTE Am as the No.77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR of Christian Ried, Julien Andlauer and Matt Campbell claimed top honours in the 6 Hours of Shanghai today, closing out a difficult week for the German team in a positive way.

The team’s No.88 of Khaled Al Qubaisi, Matteo Cairoli and WEC rookie Riccardo Pera came through for a strong third place, sandwiching Team Project 1’s Porsche with Jörg Bergmeister, Egidio Perfetti and Patrick Lindsey which took second, 8.7 seconds behind the class winner.

Despite the climatic conditions over the weekend, 45,000 enthusiastic Chinese fans supported the WEC’s annual visit to Shanghai. All 20 of the GTE entries finished the race, surviving extremely difficult driving conditions to put on a great show.