WEC 2016: Porsche beat Audi in 6 hours of Mexico

Reigning world champions, Porsche has have won the 6 hours of Mexico round of the 2016 World Endurance Championship.

Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard won the fifth round of the 2016 WEC season despite difficult weather conditions in the No. 1 Porsche at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico.

The six-hour long endurance race was packed with incidents. The No. 1 Porsche received a drive-through penalty for a pitlane entry white line rule violation. The penalty was awarded to Timo Bernhard who tried to abandon a pitstop midway when the full-course was yellow flagged.

The penalty dropped the leading Porsche to third place, but after a driver change with Hartley at the wheel, he quickly got passed the the sister Porsche and No. 8 Audi to reclaim the lead.

Half way through the race, the rack slowly became wet with the rain coming down. But Oliver Jarvis in the No. 8 Audi found himself in the barriers after spinning out at turn one due to a major brake and wheel bearing failure.

This left only the No. 7 Audi in the game, to challenge the No. 1 Porsche, after it recovered from a poor first stint. While in the wet conditions, Andre Lotterer went off track as well after closing the gap to the leading Porsche.

The No 2 Porsche that was running for the final podium spot of hit from behind by No 36 Alpine LMP2 car which forced the Porsche 919 Hybird to pit. This gave Toyota the chance to move into a spot for a podium finish.

At the chequered flag it was victory for the No 1 Porsche by 1 minute and 1 second ahead of No. 7 Audi followed by the No. 6 Toyota of Conway, Sarrazin and Kobayashi.

After the fifth round, the constructor’s championship is led by Porsche by 43 points over Audi with four more rounds to go. The next round of the championship will be held at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas on September 17.