Toyota celebrated both success in the FIA World Endurance Drivers’ Championship and winning the 6 Hours of Bahrain race today. After a difficult race that saw the no8 Toyota TS040 spend 16 laps in the garage to change an alternator, Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi took the chequered flag in 11th overall to clinch the FIA World Endurance Driver’s Championship. The sister crew of Alex Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway claimed their first race win of the 2014 season after a flawless performance in the day/night spectacular in the desert.
Filling out the podium at Bahrain were both Porsche 919 Hybrid entries with the no14 car of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas just heading home the no20 entry of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard.
The two Audi R18 e-tron quattros were 4th and 5th, with the no2 Audi of Fassler / Lotterer/ Treluyer finished one lap behind the winning Toyota and one lap ahead of the no1 R18 of Kristensen/ Di Grassi / Duval. The 22 championship points has kept Audi’s slim world championship hopes alive for the final race in Brazil in two week’s time.
The no13 Rebellion car of Dominik Kraihamer, Fabio Leimer and Andrea Belicchi won the LMP1-L class after a late race pit stop for race long leaders Nick Heidfeld/Nicolas Prost/Mathias Beche in the no12 Rebellion entry who had to pit near the end of the race to replace an alternator belt and battery. The no9 Lotus CLM-AER suffered a gearbox failure on the opening lap and Pierre Kaffer pulled off the track into retirement.
The 6 Hours of Bahrain delivered World Championship titles for Ferrari and Aston Martin.
Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander in the AF Corse No.51 Ferrari won an intense LMGTE Pro battle through the hours of darkness and, in doing so, claimed the World Endurance Cup for GT Drivers.
The Ferrari drivers’ victory today was not an easy one by any means and they were pushed hard throughout the six hours by the No.97 Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke who came through to finish second, just 1.8 seconds behind.
Third across the line in the LMGTE Pro class was the No.71 AF Corse entry of Davide Rigon and James Calado and this result was crucial in helping AF Corse to clinch the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Pro Teams. However, with the two Porsche Team Manthey 911 RSRs finishing fourth and fifth in class, the points accrued by the manufacturer meant that the difference between Ferrari and Porsche is now 25 points and, with 26 available at the final round in Sao Paulo, there is still a chance this can be claimed by the German marque.
While Aston Martin Racing just missed out in the Pro category, it celebrated double Championship success in the Am class. David Heinemeier Hansson and Kristian Poulsen, re-joined by Nicki Thiim for this round, scored their fourth class victory of the season to seal both the FIA Endurance Trophy for LMGTE Am Drivers and the title for LMGTE Teams.