Car Guy Magazine Car Guy Magazine Issue 1214 | Page 74

PORSCHE TEAM’S
FIRST WEC VICTORY

IN THE 919 HYBRID

The Porsche Team has achieved
its maiden win with the innovative
Porsche 919 Hybrid in the final race
of the 2014 FIA World Endurance
Championship in São Paulo with
the driving trio of Romain Dumas
(France), Neel Jani (Switzerland)
and Marc Lieb (Germany).
At the same time as the team
achieved the biggest success of its debut season, it had its greatest shock
when Mark Webber had a very heavy
accident in the sister car with less than
half an hour to go before the end of the
six-hour race.
The Australian, who shares the LMP1
race car with Timo Bernhard (Germany)
and Brendon Hartley (New Zealand),
crashed heavily into the barriers at the

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fast last turn of the lap. He was in sixth
position. The initial information the team
received from the medical centre at the
track was that he was not badly injured.
However, he has been transferred to a
hospital in São Paulo for further checks.
The race finished behind the safety car
with Neel Jani at the wheel of the winning car.
How the race went for car number
14: Lieb started from second, but lost
one place to a Toyota on lap one. After
breath-taking attempts to get the position back, after 37 laps he handed over
the car, which was still lying in third, to
Jani. The Swiss continued to attack the
Toyota, they swapped places, but when
Jani handed over to Dumas after 76 laps
the car was still third. Dumas only got by
when the Toyota had contact with another car on lap 88.

On lap 105 Dumas had to pit early
because of a right rear puncture. Lieb
got behind the wheel again and took
the lead after 119 laps when the sister
car suffered problems. Lieb pitted after
144 laps to hand the car back to Dumas.
After 183 laps Jani took over with the car
lying second. At his final pit stop after
222 laps he stayed in the car and took
the risk not to change tyres to save time.
The risk paid off.
How the race went for car number
20: Bernhard started from pole position
and was leading by 12 seconds when
he handed over to Webber after 38
laps. Webber stayed in the lead of the
race, despite some trouble in traffic, and
handed over to Hartley at the end of lap
79. For the Kiwi and car number 20 the
dream to win the race was over soon as
an unidentified problem cost some engine power. After 119 laps Hartley handed over to Bernhard, who continued in
third. During a full course yellow after
153 laps Hartley got behind the wheel
again. After 193 laps Webber took over
again, with the car having meanwhile
dropped back to sixth place. He had his
last pit stop after 227 laps and a heavy
crash in the fast last corner of the track
when the race was on its 239th lap with
less than half an hour remaining.
Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1:
“The most important news of today
is that, given the circumstances, Mark
Webber is in good condition, according
to the first information from the doctors. I
find it hard to believe that we really man-