It still seems unbelieveable and looked so unlikely for such a long time, but Porsche has won the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans. Driving the number 2 Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid, Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb were first to cross the line after a full day of racing to claim Porsche’s 18th Le Mans win.
I had just tweeted “with five minutes left, it looks like Porsche will have to wait until next year for win number 18” and was about to switch to Sky F1 for the start of the Baku Grand Prix, when a wounded number 5 Toyota – the leader – came onto the screen, slowing as it crossed the start/finish line for the penultimate lap. Crawling to a halt, the car looked like it would not be moving again, until it eventually restarted at a snail’s pace. Rumour has it that the car suffered turbo failure, but we don’t know for sure yet.
Porsche wins Le Mans
All the time this was unravelling, the Porsche 919 was getting closer and closer, having pulled a last minute stop for tyres and fuel. Jaw dropped, I deleted the tweet and sat spellbound in a combination of shock, joy and horror as the 919 started its very last lap. Soon enough, the car crossed the line and the Porsche garage went totally mental. We didn’t see what was going on in the Toyota pits but then the tweets started flying and it was obvious how upset the team was.
Worst of all, the Toyota was not classified as it had taken too long to complete its last lap. The Audi guys looked seriously uncomfortable on the third step of the podium, but that’s racing. We’ve lost enough races in the dying moments and a win is a win: the shoe could just as easily be on the other foot.
Winning Le Mans more important than winning a Championship
Winning at Le Mans – an overall win – is arguably more important and commercially beneficial than taking a championship. Toyota certainly seems to think so, as the story goes that this car was built specifically to win at Le Mans. If that is a fact, then the 919s win is even more impressive. Well done to all at Porsche Motorsport.
Earl Bamber, Nick Tandy and Nico Hulkenberg took a determined victory at Le Mans last year, preparing for the 24 Hours of Le Mans by racing the number 19 919 LMP1 Hybrid at the 2015 6 Hours of Spa Francorchamps. It was the first time that a third 919 had been run in a round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Last year’s Le Mans winners will not drive the Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid this year. Following the Volkswagen dieselgate scandal and the subsequent pressure to slash unnecessary costs within the VW Group, Porsche reduced its WEC LMP1 squad to two cars only for the season.
Earl Bamber impressed at Spa Supercup 2014
Bamber arrived in the Ardennes as a works team rookie, but had strong form in Belgium. The previous year, the talented New Zealander had taken the first pole of his first real season in global Porsche racing at Spa, nicking the Porsche Supercup pole by three-tenths of a second ahead of seasoned Supercup veteran and current Aston works driver, Nicki Thiim. Bamber dominated the race and took a memorable win for the Fach Auto Tech team, part sponsored by Porsche as the winner of the Porsche International Cup Scholarship. No doubt his performance at the circuit in changeable conditions was a sizeable ingredient in earning a works driver contract for 2015.
“I love this circuit, as it is a spectacular place,” said Bamber from the 919 garage in 2015. “I am so looking forward to taking the 919 through Eau Rouge and can’t wait to race that car. When the Silverstone race was on I was glued to the screen: it was one of the best races I have ever seen. It was like a six-hour Supercup race. I enjoyed working with Nico and Nick in testing and now I’m really looking forward to racing with our car crew for the first time.”
Spa WEC with the Porsche 919 LMP1
The race was a turbulent affair. A stunning qualifying performance from Tandy put the car second on the grid for his 919 debut, but, on lap seven, the 919 was involved in a collision with one of the 911 RSRs and was forced to stop for repairs. Hulkenberg then double-stinted form ninth overall, and handed the car to Bamber at the 80-lap mark. Tandy brought the car home sixth overall after fitting tyres to the left side of the car only in his final stop.
The overall weekend evidenced a phenomenal chemistry between the rookie trio, who delivered a gritty performance to forge formidable bonds, which eventually led to a great result for the team at Le Mans. It’s a real shame that they will not get the chance to defend their title this year (albeit Nico can’t do it anyway due a clash with F1).
Onboard Spa Francorchamps with Earl Bamber in a Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid
This in-car footage shows just how tight Spa is when racing an LMP1 car on track with the wide-arched GT cars. It is surprising just how much much of the lap is flat out: Eau Rouge, Radillon, most of the downhill run from Rivage onwards and even Blanchimont are taken with foot pinned to the throttle stop. This lap is run nowhere near the 919’s ultimate pace but it’s still impressive. This year’s 6 hours of Spa Francorchamps is on May 7.
The Porsche 919 LMP1 Hybrid was gifted a win at the opening round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season after the actual race winning Audi R18 was excluded in post-race scrutineering due to an excessively worn skidblock.
The skidblock under the front of Audi’s latest WEC challenger was found to be less than 20mm thick, contravening the FIA technical regulations, thereby ruling the car out of the final results. The second-placed Porsche 919 LMP1 of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb.
Porsche WEC Crash Video
Jani had set the fastest race lap, with a time of 1:40.303: just six-tenths of a second slower than the 919’s fastest time around Silverstone over the course of last weekend, which was set by Brendon Hartley in Free Practice 2. Hartley came a cropper in the race, however, when contact with the Gulf Racing Porsche 911 of Mike Wainwright on lap 71 led to a huge accident for car number 1, which had built up a comfortable lead in the hands of Mark Webber. Both drivers escaped unharmed, but the damage to the 919 won’t be buffing out. Here’s some video:
Hartley’s post-race statement took no prisoners. “I wanted to get past a GT car on the outside, which is quite normal through there, but the driver didn’t see me and used all of the road. I don’t want to blame anyone, it was a shocking moment and a true shame.” The stewards saw the cause of the crash rather differently, laying the blame with Brendon while noting: “you are reminded that LMP1 drivers are liable for the way they overtake slower cars such as LMP2 and especially LM GTE cars.”
Sixth position in GTE-Pro was the best the 911 RSR could manage after problems with a pit stop. The Ferraris of Rigon/Bird and Bruni/Calado came home first and second, followed by Turner/Sörenson/Thiim in the Aston, with a brace of Ford GTs making up the top five. In six hours of racing, the 911 RSR of reigning GT champions, Michael Christensen and Richard Lietz, clocked up 154 laps versus the wining Ferrari’s 167 laps overall: a sizeable gap to the front. We’ll have to see how the season pans out: Porsche is holding station with customer teams only for the old 991 while the new 911 racecar is in development.
The next race on the 2016 WEC Calendar is the 6 hours of Spa Francorchamps on May 7. The 911 should do well if it rains in Belgium.
The 2016 World Endurance Championship has officially kicked off with the recent two-day ‘Prologue’ warm-up event at Paul Ricard. Porsche brought both 2016 919 LMP1 Hybrids to the circuit, covering a total of 2,197 kilometres.
Drivers Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, Marc Lieb ran their car on day one, with reigning World Champions, Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber taking their turn on day two. Each session finished with a Porsche 919 Hybrid leading the time sheets. The overall fastest lap was set by Brendon Hartley.
“It was trouble-free running for both our new cars,” said Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1, “and we have received positive feedback from our drivers. Therefore we are confident for the opening round at Silverstone on April 17. Only there it will be possible to judge the overall competition.”
“Running two cars was a good dress rehearsal for the team before the first race,” said Team Principal, Andreas Seidl (above). “The drivers have done a lot of testing during recent weeks but at the Prologue they were facing on-track traffic for the first time since last year’s finale. By the end of the two days, we had achieved the targets we had set ourselves in terms of season preparation.”
2016 FIA WEC Calendar
The 2016 WEC season starts at Silverstone later this month, kicking off nine races in total: Le Mans at 24 hours and eight more six-hour events. Mexico is a new race for 2016, with the rest of the calendar mirroring last year. “We are proud to have maintained the level of stability in the four years of the WEC,” said Pierre Fillon, President of ACO. “The time is right to expand the WEC, and the nine-race calendar allows us to continue to build the tradition of six-hour events. Of course, the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans is the race that everyone knows about and wants to compete in, but the legend is now being extended to the six-hour races as well and moving into countries with strong historic links to endurance, such as Mexico City.”
The 2016 FIA WEC calendar is as follows:
17 April: 6 Hours of Silverstone, UK
07 May: WEC 6 Hours of Spa, Belgium
18/19 June: 24 Hours of Le Mans, France
24 July: 6 Hours of Nürburgring, Germany
04 September: 6 Hours of Mexico City, Mexico
17 September: 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas, USA
With less than two weeks to go until the start of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship season, Porsche’s LMP1 Technical Director, Alexander Hitzinger, has left the team. News reports claim that Hitzinger has handed in his notice to focus on projects outside motorsport.
To be honest, I find the idea of Hitzinger working on projects outside of motorsport pretty ridiculous. Previously employed as Head of Advanced Technologies for Red Bull Racing (2006-2011), with a year also spent as Technical Director for Scuderia Toro Rosso Formula One Racing, Hitzinger lives and breathes motorsport.
Alex Hitzinger: Motorsport Fanatic
Fascinated by motor racing since his earliest days, Alex Hitzinger studied mechanical engineering at the University of Applied Sciences in Landshut, Bavaria before gaining an MBA from the University of Warwick. His first automotive job was as a development engineer with Toyota Motorsport in 1997. There he met Carlos Sainz, who he followed to Ford in 2000, where he was made Head of Ford-Cosworth World Rally Championship Development and later overall head of the Cosworth-Ford WRC programme, which was based in Northampton.
From Head of WRC, in 2003 Hitzinger became Head of Cosworth-Ford F1 Development, leading the team that built the Cosworth CA 2.4-litre V8, which became famous for peak revs of 20,000 rpm. In 2006, he was poached by Red Bull, where he stayed until 2011 and the move to Porsche.
Alex Hitzinger: Future Directions
In 2014, Hitzinger was voted the Rising Star for Engineering in the prestigious Automotive News Europe Rising Star awards. An interview for the awards PR asked Alex what job he really wanted to have in the future. “I am very happy with what I am doing right now,” he said. “This is what I always wanted: to have a challenging leadership role in a very demanding project in top-level motorsports. But I could also imagine changing directions at some point in the future, to broaden my horizons. I am entrepreneurial in everything I do, always seeking a challenge.”
Perhaps Alex Hitzinger has changed direction to find a new challenge. But to do it within weeks of the WEC season start and just days after pre-season F1 testing finishes? That is a heavy coincidence for one of the people best placed to bring real success to a struggling F1 hybrid programme. We could see a non-compete contract clause playing out before he pops back up in an F1 paddock. Whatever happens, his departure is a blow to the Porsche LMP1 team. The team has no immediate plan for Hitzinger’s replacement.
“On behalf of Porsche I want to thank Alexander Hitzinger very much for his huge contribution to the outstanding successes of the Porsche 919 Hybrid,” said Fritz Enzinger, Porsche’s VP of LMP1. “Alexander was one of the first people to come on board at the end of 2011. I appreciate his desire for a new challenge.”
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