Sunday, November 30, 2014

Porsche Wins FIA WEC Season Finale at Interlagos

After a heavy accident by Mark Webber brought out the safety car, the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb scored it's maiden victory in the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship season finale from Interlagos. The #14 Porsche finished out the podium in each of the final three races, improving by one position in each race. The 2014 world champions, the #8 Toyota TS040 of Anthony Davidson and Sébastien Buemi finished second with the #1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro rounding out the podium. Tom Kristensen ends his career with one final podium as Lucas di Grassi finished on the podium in his home race and Loïc Duval gets his third podium of the season.

The #7 Toyota of Alexander Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway finished fourth with the #2 Audi of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer rounding out the top five. With Toyota coming home in second and fourth, the Japanese manufacture has dethrone Audi as manufactures' championship.

Webber was carried off on a stretcher after his turn eleven accident at the end of the race. Webber did raise his arm and wave as he was put in the ambulance. Porsche tweeted that Webber is ok. Also involved in the accident was the #90 8Star Motorsport Ferrari of Matteo Cressoni. The Italian got out of his car under his own power.

In LMP2, the #47 KCMG Oreca-Nissan of Richard Bradley, Matthew Howson and Alexandre Imperatori won their third race of the 2014 season despite suffering two accidents. The #26 G-Drive Racing Ligier's championship hopes were squashed early after an accident heading into turn one with Olivier Pla behind the wheel. The accident is believed to have been caused by a brake failure. With their retirement, the LMP2 championship fell to the #27 SMP Racing Oreca-Nissan and driver Sergey Zlobin who finished second in class after the #37 SMP Racing Oreca had a mechanical failure, forcing them to pull off course. KCMG won by 18 laps over the #27 SMP Racing Oreca.

Aston Martin swept the GT classes as the #97 of Stefan Mücke and Darren Turner won their second race of the season in GTE-Pro. Their only other victory came at Austin. The #92 Porsche 991 RSR of Patrick Pilet and Frédéric Makowiecki finished second with the #71 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of James Calado and Davide Rigon coming home in third. The world champions Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander finished fourth.

Ferrari clinched the GT manufactures' championship with AF Corse coming home in third and fourth.

Aston Martin picked up their seventh victory in GTE-Am in 2014 with the #98 of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard getting their third victory. The #95 Aston Martin of David Heinemeier Hansson, Kristian Poulsen and Nicki Thiim finished second. The #95 finished second in all even-numbered rounds of the season and won all odd-numbered rounds as Hansson and Poulsen clinched the title at Bahrain. The #81 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Stephan Wyatt, Michele Rugolo and Andrea Bertolini rounded out the GTE-Am podium, their second consecutive podium to close out the season.

The 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship season begins April 12, 2015 at Silverstone, 133 days away.