How the World Endurance Drivers Championship was won

Porsche reigned supreme in the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2016, however it was very much a season of two halves for the LMP1 title-winning trio of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb.

Their No. 2 919 Hybrid made a strong start to the year, profiting from the post-race exclusion of the No.7 Audi R18 to win the Silverstone season-opener and a technical fault for Toyota to triumph in dramatic style at Le Mans. Having finished second at Spa and added a further point for pole at Le Mans – Jani’s second in as many years – the Porsche crew came away from Le Mans with 94 points in the bank out of a possible 103, putting them 39 points clear of the No. 8 Audi shared by Spa winners Loïc Duval, Oliver Jarvis and Lucas di Grassi.

Remarkably, the No. 2 Porsche didn’t return to the podium for the remainder of the season but, despite finishing fourth on four separate occasions and ending the year with a sixth place finish in Bahrain after an early puncture, it was enough for Jani, Dumas and Lieb to take the World Drivers title. It was the perfect way for Dumas and Lieb to mark their departures from LMP1. Porsche had already wrapped up the World Endurance Manufacturers Championship in China with a round to spare.

While the No. 2 Porsche struggled to hit the heights it had in the first half of the season, a hat trick of wins for Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley in the No. 1 car ensured the No. 8 Audi would have to settle for the runners-up spot at the Nürburgring and COTA.

When Audi did manage to get the better of the Porsche at Fuji, they were outfoxed on strategy by the No. 6 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin, who prevailed in perhaps the closest race of the season – and certainly the most gripping – to take the marque’s first victory since 2014.

Brake failure for Jarvis in Mexico and a difficult run to fifth in Shanghai meant that the title was out of the No.8 Audi’s reach heading into Bahrain, with only the Toyota standing between Porsche and a second successive title. But, on their final outing in the current era of endurance racing, the Audis blew everybody away as Duval, Jarvis and di Grassi led home a 1-2 to snatch second in the points from the off-colour Toyota. The result also meant Audi secured second in the manufacturers’ standings.