Sports cars: Successful Swiss at Silverstone
SPORTWAGEN As many as four Swiss drivers stood on the podium after the two sports car races at Silverstone this weekend. Hugo de Sadeleer won in the European Le Mans Series, Sébastien Buemi with Toyota in the World Endurance Championship. World champion Neel Jani finished an inconspicuous third with Porsche. It came as it had to come. As predicted in our Good Friday preview, Toyota played [...]
It came as it had to come. As predicted in our preview from Good Friday, Toyota exploited its aerodynamic advantage over Porsche at the opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Silverstone. However, the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids with the body variant designed for more downforce were only superior in practice.
In the race, Porsche was closer than expected with the aerodynamics already designed for Le Mans for the two 919 Hybrids. At times the number 2 team even led, but 12 minutes before the end Sébastien Buemi fought off the Porsche to celebrate its first victory in over two and a half years. Light rain showers and yellow phases had affected the six-hour race at times, so Porsche always stayed within striking distance with a different tire strategy than Toyota.
Last year's winner Neel Jani, together with his new teammates André Lotterer and Nick Tandy, never really got a word in for victory. While their teammates Bernhard/Bamber/Hartley finished just 6.1 seconds behind the Toyota of Buemi/Davidson/Nakajima, they lost almost 47 seconds.
Third place on the most difficult track for Porsche is nevertheless not a bad start to the season. Porsche should be even closer to Toyota at the next race on the faster Spa-Francorchamps circuit (May 6).
In the LMP2 class, dual nationals Nicolas Prost (F-CH), Bruno Senna (BR) and Julien Canal (F) finished second in the Vaillante Rebellion Racing Oreca-Gibson. Jonathan Hirschi from Neuchâtel and Simon Trummer from Kandertal finished 5th and 6th, respectively, with the cars fielded by ex-GP team Manor, with laps down.
A Lausanne man wins his first major sports car race
Already on Saturday, Hugo de Sadeleer triumphed at Silverstone in his first ever sports car race. Last year, the 19-year-old from Lausanne won a European Cup race at Spa in Formula Renault. On Easter Saturday, the Frenchman competed for the first time in the European Le Mans Series together with Will Owen (USA) and Filipe Albuquerque (P) in a Ligier-Gibson LMP2 that was three times as powerful.
In a thrilling finish, the Portuguese took the lead in the last three minutes of the four-hour race thanks to the fresher tires. The former DTM driver thus gave the Frenchman his biggest victory in racing to date.
In the same race, Joel Camathias finished second in the GT class in a Porsche 911 RSR. "That was a great team performance, because the Aston Martins had the advantage in terms of their classification," said the Ticino native, pleased with the successful start to the season.
