WEC 2016: Audi claims miraculous win at Spa

Audi Sport Joest Team take a memorable win at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps. The No. 8 car of Oliver Jarvis/Lucas Di Grassi/Loic Duval took the win two laps ahead of the No. 2 Porsche of Romain Dumas/Neel Jani/Marc Lieb. Another two laps further behind was the No. 13 Rebellion of Dominik Kraihamer/Alexandre Imperatori/Mathéo Tuscher which came in third.

Early on in the race, the No. 1 Porsche had a comfortable lead with Brandon Hartley behind the wheel. The No. 2 Porsche at the time was suffering problem with their hybrid system and were trying to cope with the lost pace and were falling down the order.

The No. 8 Audi with Di Grassi and the No. 5 Toyota of Sebastian Buemi had found themselves in a major fight for second place. Buemi pitted for the first time (only for fuel) and came out in the lead. Timo Berhard now in the No. 1 Porsche hunted the leader down to duel for the lead, but had to head back into the pits with a front-left puncture.

No.5 Toyota managed to keep the lead with Anthony Davidson behind the wheel. Davidson had a one minute gap over the No. 8 Audi. Kamui Kobayashi had placed the second No. 6 Toyota in third.

At the half way stage of the race, the No. 2 Porsche was still suffering with Hybrid Issues, while the No 1. Porsche needed a gearbox change. The No. 7 Audi as well faced problems that dropped both the Audi and the Porsche down the order.

The leading Toyota unexpectedly suffered a major engine issue that dropped the car down the order. No. 8 Audi then inherited the lead of the race with under a third of the race still to go.

Oliver Jarvis in the leading Audi was ahead of the the No. 5 Toyota of Nakajima which was forced to retire from a provisional podium position with engine failure.

This played perfectly into the hands of the struggling No. 2 Porsche that now found itself in 2^nd place. With the Toyota, and the sister Porsche and Audi further back, the No. 13 Rebellion now stood third overall ahead of the the No. 12 Rebellion in fourth. The No. 7 Audi was a distant sixth.

At the 6 hour mark, the Chequered flag dropped for Oliver Jarvis to take the victory. The win was Jarvis and Di Grassi’s first ever WEC win with Loic Duval.

The No. 2 Porsche extended their championship lead despite their battle with their inner gremlins by taking the first runner up spot. The race also marked the best ever finish for the privateer Rebellion team with the No. 13 car finishing third overall and taking the LMP1 Privateer win with the No12 Rebellion finishing fourth overall.