Video: Porsche claim first overall victory in FIA WEC for 16 years
Porsche are today celebrating their first overall victory as a factory team in the World Endurance Championship for 16 years after the 919 hybrid piloted by Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb crossed the line in first place at the final race of the season in Sao Paulo.
Lieb started the race in second position in car number 14, initially slipping to third after just one lap. Lieb, Dumas and Jani then kept the LMP1 racer in the top three positions throughout the six-hour race and in a dramatic twist, a time-saving gamble by Jani not to change tyres on his last pitstop of the race paid off as the 919 crossed the line first under safety car conditions.
The result was marred by an accident involving Mark Webber in the sister Porsche 919 hybrid, after the Australian collided heavily with the barrier when trying to overtake a back marker with just 30 minutes of racing remaining. It was Webber’s crash that caused the safety car to be deployed for the last stint of the race. Webber remained in hospital in Sao Paulo overnight but his injuries are not thought to be serious.
Meanwhile in the GTE-Pro class, Frederic Mackowiecki and Patrick Pilet crossed the line in second position, while the sister 991 RSR piloted by Jorg Bergmeister and Richard Lietz finished sixth. The efforts of both factory 911s this year helped cement the runners-up for Porsche in the manufacturers’ championship for 2014, 26 points behind Ferrari. This capped off a strong year for the 911 at the pinnacle of endurance racing, bouyed of course by the success of Porsche North America Racing in the Tudor USCC.
The Sao Paulo spectacle finishes off a positive year for the Porsche factory team in both classes of the FIA WEC, who promptly celebrated by releasing this video from their Brazilian exploits. Enjoy the watch and get ready for an even stronger challenge on both fronts from the factory team in 2015!
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