Victory for Buemi, title to Porsche
LONG-DISTANCE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP Bitter victory for Sébastien Buemi. Although the Vaud native won for the fourth time in eight races with Toyota, the drivers' and manufacturers' titles go to Porsche. The dethroned world champion Neel Jani remains winless. Toyota dominated the action at the eighth round of the World Endurance Championship in Shanghai, China, almost at will. Although Sébastien Buemi celebrated with Anthony Davidson [...]
Toyota dominated the action at the eighth round of the World Endurance Championship in Shanghai, China, almost at will. Sébastien Buemi celebrated his fourth win of the season with Anthony Davidson (GB) and Kazuki Nakajima. However, the last chances of winning the drivers' championship title are gone.
The Porsche trio of Timo Bernhard (Germany), Earl Bamber and Ben Hartley (both New Zealand), who have been leading since their triumph at Le Mans in June, took second place to secure an early title win. Porsche is also the world champion in the manufacturers' standings. This means that the Germans have achieved the Le Mans triple, drivers' and manufacturers' championships in the premier LMP1 class three times in a row since 2015.
After the next race on November 18 in Bahrain, Porsche will withdraw from the factory. There, Neel Jani will have his last chance to claim a victory in 2017 after all. After their bad luck at Le Mans (engine failure while leading), he and his partners André Lotterer (D) and Nick Tandy (GB) had to give way to their teammates, who are now confirmed as world champions, by internal stable order.
In Shanghai, their Porsche 919 Hybrid lost a full lap in the early stages due to a sensor problem. In China, his Porsche 919 Hybrid finished third after the second Toyota, which had started from pole position, dropped back. "Obviously we're not having any luck this year. Now we have to end this run of bad luck in Bahrain," hopes Biel, who was dethroned as world champion.
Victory in the LMP2 class went to the Swiss-flagged Rebellion Racing team. With Bruno Senna, Nicolas Prost and Julien Canal, Rebellion now leads the team and driver standings by just four points.
Simon Trummer finished fifth with his team and Nico Müller seventh in his sports car debut with G-Drive Racing (all in Oreca-Gibson). Two collisions threw his team back a total of two laps.
