Points check after six rounds of the 2016 WEC season
Porsche retain the lead of the FIA World Endurance Driver’s and Manufacturer’s Championship standings after a thrilling 6 Hours of COTA, but the momentum has shifted to the No. 1 919 Hybrid of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard after their third successive victory. The defending champions endured a difficult start to the season, taking only 3.5 points from the opening three rounds, but have recovered in fine style to leapfrog the No. 7 Audi R18 of Andre Lotterer and Marcel Fassler for fourth in the standings.
A fourth-place finish for the Le Mans-winning No. 2 Porsche of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas ensures they hold a 37.5 point advantage over the No. 8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis at the top of the table, relegating the No. 6 Toyota to third. The No. 13 Rebellion of Dominik Kraihamer, Matheo Tuscher and Alexandre Imperatori consolidated their advantage in the LMP1 Privateers competition with another class win.
In LMP2, Signatech-Alpine redressed the balance after their victory streak was ended by RGR Sport in Mexico. A fourth win of the season for Nicolas Lapierre, Gustavo Menezes and Stephane Richelmi has extended their lead over Bruno Senna, Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Gonzalez to 41 points. A third place finish for Roman Rusinov, Rene Rast and Alex Brundle enabled G-Drive Racing to retake third in the standings from ESM trio Pipo Derani, Ryan Dalziel and Chris Cumming after their costly brake failure in the closing stages in Mexico.
Aston Martin Racing seized the top spot from Ferrari in the WEC Manufacturers Championship with a clean sweep of the GTE Pro and Am classes, while Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen’s first win lifts them to the lead in the Driver’s Cup. Davide Rigon and Sam Bird still hold second in the points after finishing third behind team-mates James Calado and Gianmaria Bruni, whose second place helps them rise to fourth in the standings at the expense of the absent Richie Stanaway.
In GTE-Am, a problematic run for the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari of Emmanuel Collard, Francois Perrodo and Rui Aguas opened the door for Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda to win, but the No. 98 Aston Martin will still have some work to do to make up their 41-point deficit in the remaining three rounds. David Heinemeier-Hansson and Khaled Al Qubaisi still hold second in the No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Porsche, with the No. 98 crew third.
