Porsche 1-2 after 2 hours; Ferrari lead GTE
After two hours of racing, Porsche has taken a firm 1-2 lead in the 6 Hours of Mexico Presented by AT&T, with the No.2 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley holding a narrow advantage over their team mates in the No.1.
Behind the two Toyota TS050 HYBRIDs is the No.31 Vaillante Rebellion ORECA Gibson with a 27s gap to G-Drive Racing’s No.26 which is narrowly ahead of the No.36 Signatech Alpine Matmut A470. There has been plenty of passing and close action at the front, with the Championship-leading car suffering clutch problems and losing time in the pits.
LMGTE has been spicy from the very start, and is now led by the No.71 AF Corse Ferrari of Davide Rigon and Sam Bird who are being chased hard by the No.95 Aston Martin Vantage. Ford and Porsche are still in the mix in the Pro category, while the No.98 Aston Martin of Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana is having a strong battle with the Porsche 911 RSRs of Dempsey Proton Racing and Gulf Racing.
The headlines after two hours:
• Porsche LMP1 Team control WEC 6 Hours of Mexico presented by AT&T in opening hours
• No.2 Porsche 919 Hybrid, now in the hands of Earl Bamber, still leads No.1 sister car but by just 1.5s after second scheduled pit stops
• Brendon Hartley had maintained small gap over Tandy in No.1 Porsche throughout first two hours of race. Gap fluctuates in traffic throughout
• André Lotterer takes over from Nick Tandy but car under investigation for possible pit lane speeding at second pit stop
• Toyota pair swap positions in opening exchanges Mike Conway and Sébastien Buemi evenly matched but lacking outright pace of Porsche
• LMP2 sees Nico Prost in No.31 Vaillante Rebellion continues in lead as he fends off Alex Lynn throughout the second hour
• Prost makes use of fresh rubber at first scheduled stop to maintain lead as he stays for double stint
• Roman Rusinov takes over second place in G-Drive Racing ORECA-Gibson and is forced to defend from charging Gustavo Menezes’ Signatech Alpine
• Problems for points leading Jackie Chan DC Racing entry as Oliver Jarvis delayed with clutch problem
• No.71 AF Corse re-takes LMGTE Pro lead after quicker pit stops as Davide Rigon slightly extends gap to Nicki Thiim in no.95 Aston Martin Racing car
• Earlier, Thiim’s teammate Marco Sørensen had made the move of the race on leader Sam Bird at turn one
• Ford GTs continue third and fourth with No.66 leading No.67. Pla and Priaulx take over in the cockpit
• No.51 AF Corse Ferrari fights back after pre-race engine change to place P4
• Fight is on in LMGTE Am as early leader Mathias Lauda's No.98 Aston Martin Racing is hunted down by Dempsey Proton Porsche of Marvin Dienst
• Ben Barker catching both the top two in Gulf Porsche as second hour charge
