Alonso, Buemi and Nakajima win at Spa

  • Published on 04 May 2019 21:00
  • 1
  • By: Harry Mattocks

LMP1

Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima made another significant step towards the FIA World Endurance Championship title as they won the snow-hit Six Hours of Spa.

The race was called to a halt with eleven minutes to run, due to the snowy weather that had been a problem throughout the whole race.

At the wheel of the #8 Toyota TS050, the team took the victory by over one lap from the second-placed Rebellion R13 of Berthon, Laurent and Menezes.

For the majority of the race, it was the #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez that looked to be on course for victory, as they had built up more than a 50-second lead from their teammates. However, at half distance they suffered a brake sensor failure which cost them eleven minutes in the pits. 

In his debut race in LMP1, Stoffel Vandoorne finished in third place alonside Mikhail Aleshin and Vitaly Petrov for SMP Racing. 

LMP2

In LMP2, it was ex-Formula 1 winner Pastor Maldonado that took the victory for DragonSpeed, in what was the team's first victory in this class. Driving with Maldonado were Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez in the #31 car.

The Venezuelan had an excellent final stint in the car, as he managed to hold off his opponents to take the chequered (or in this case, red) flag. This came after the 10-second gap that he had built up was lost due to the final safety car. 

In second place were G-Drive Racing, with Jean Eric Vergne, Roman Rusinov and Job van Uitert at the wheel. They were just ahead of the #36 car of Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Pierre Thiriet.

GTE

In the GTE class, Aston Martin managed to score a second win of the season as Maxime Martin and Alex Lynn drove their Vantage GTE to victory.

At the final restart of the race, Martin overtook the Ferrari of David Rigon to take the lead. He then managed to extend this lead to 10-seconds before the end of the race.

Antonio Felix da Costa and Tom Blomqvist finished in second place in the #82 car, whilst the #91 Porsche of Bruni and Lietz were third.

However, the third-placed runners were due to serve a drive through penalty before the red flag stopped the race early. This means that it is likely the #92 Porsche of Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen will be promoted to the final podium place.

Race Results

1. #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050 Hybrid (Alonso/Buemi/Nakajima) 133 laps
2. #3 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 Gibson (Berthon/Laurent/Menezes) + 1 lap
3. #11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 AER (Aleshin/Petrov/Vandoorne) + 1 lap
4. #17 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 AER (Sarrazin/Orudzhev/Sirotkin) + 2 laps
5. #1 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 Gibson (Jani/Lotterer/Senna) + 3 laps
6. #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050 Hybrid (Conway/Kobayashi/Lopez) + 4 laps
7. #31 DragonSpeed Oreca 07 Gibson (Gonzalez/Maldonado/Davidson) + 4 laps
8. #26 G-Drive Racing Aurus 01 Gibson (Rusinov/Van Uitert/Vergne) + 4 laps
9. #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine A470 Gibson (Lapierre/Negrao/Thiriet) + 4 laps
10. #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Tung/Aubry/Richelmi) + 4 laps
11. #28 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Perrodo/Vaxiviere/Nato) + 5 laps
12. #29 Racing Team Nederland Dallara P217 Gibson (Van Eerd/Van der Garde/De Vries) + 6 laps
13. #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Heinemeier-Hansson/King/Stevens) + 6 laps
14. #50 Larbre Competition Ligier JSP217 Gibson (Creed/Ricci/Boulle) + 7 laps
15. #97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR (Lynn/Martin) + 9 laps
16. #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo (Pier Guidi/Calado) + 9 laps
17. #91 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR (Lietz/Bruni) + 9 laps
18. #92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR (Christensen/Estre) + 9 laps
19. #82 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE (Farfus/Felix da Costa) + 9 laps
20. #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK Ford GT (Priaulx/Tincknell) + 9 laps
21. #71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo (Rigon/Bird) + 9 laps
22. #95 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR (Sørensen/Thiim) + 9 laps
23. #81 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE (Tomczyk/Catsburg) + 9 laps
24. #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK Ford GT (Mücke/Pla) + 10 laps
25. #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Ried/Pera/Campbell) + 11 laps
26. #90 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage (Yoluc/Alers-Hankey/Eastwood) + 11 laps
27. #61 Clearwater Racing Ferrari 488 GTE (Perez-Companc/Cressoni/Griffin) + 11 laps
28. #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE (Flohr/Castellacci/Fisichella) + 11 laps
29. #56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR (Bergmeister/Lindsey/Perfetti) + 11 laps
30. #98 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage (Dalla Lana/Lamy/Lauda) + 12 laps
31. #86 Gulf Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Wainwright/Barker/Preining) + 12 laps
32. #70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 GTE (Ishikawa/Beretta/Cheever) + 13 laps
33. #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Roda/Roda Jr./Cairoli) + 18 laps
34. #4 ByKolles Racing Team ENSO CLM P1/01 (Dillmann/Webb/Ruberti) + 38 laps

Replies (1)

Login to reply

Related news