Imagine how Australia’s Mark Webber must be feeling right about now, a week removed from his debut effort for the Porsche factory team in the 6 Hours of Silverstone?
He made his first podium in the opening round of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship thanks to – rather than, as in the past, in spite of – his teammates.
Long gone now is Sebastien Vettel, the German Formula One champion who isn’t exactly Australia’s most favourite international sportsman. Webber has two brilliant teammates in up-and-coming New Zealander Brendon Hartley and experienced German Timo Bernhard at Porsche, and they appear to complement him perfectly.
The Webber-Bernhard-Hartley trio is certainly a swift one, netting a third place in the first race for the new 919 prototype. With a six-hour event at Spa-Francorchamps to come before the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, the sky appears to be the limit. If the new Porsche can maintain its reliability at Circuit de la Sarthe, watch out. They showed at Silverstone, a track just as fast as Le Mans, that the car has speed to burn.
Webber hailed the third-place finish (two laps down to the winner) as a “massive step” for the German manufacturer, which hasn’t had a car in world sports car racing since the Porsche RS Spyder that saw some success in the American Le Mans Series when it was run by the powerhouse Team Penske outfit. Ironically, two of Penske’s drivers then, the Frenchman Romain Dumas and Bernhard remain with the Porsche team. On loan to Audi in 2010, they won the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Mike Rockenfeller.
As good as Porsche was, the real story from the premiere prototype (LMP1) class was the stunning 1-2 finish for Toyota. Actually, that was only half the story, but a good one to tell: the #8 TS040 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Nicolas Lapierre won by a full lap over their sister car, the #7, driven by Alex Wurz, Kazuki Nakajima and Stephane Sarrazin.
The other half of the Silverstone narrative was the rugged outing for the powerhouse Audi squad. You never count out a team whose cars are driven by sports car legends like nine-time Le Mans overall winner Tom Kristensen, but it was a disaster of a day for the German team, whose cars both failed to finish a race that was red-flagged about half an hour short of its scheduled end due to a torrential downpour that left standing water on the circuit.
It was Toyota’s day, and a famous victory was almost handed to them when the two Audis crashed out. Certainly, the Japanese squad showed speed across the weekend, but they were helped by the weather conditions, which contributed to the slick track and dangerous conditions. Webber’s Porsche deserved it’s third placing. The WEC debutants weren’t quite able to run with the big dogs at Silverstone, but that should change.
You can only imagine that the twin failure in England will spur the Audi squad on, and, provided they win the uphill battle to repair their two cars in time for the six hour race at Spa-Francorchamps in early May, they figure to be tough to beat. Both cars sustained pretty serious chassis damage, and it’s not certain that they will be ready to race in Belgium. Audi might have to use chassis from it’s test cars.
At the same time as the two primary cars are being repaired, Dr Wolfgang Ulrich’s squad is preparing its third car, to be driven by Oliver Jarvis, Marco Bonanomi and Filipe Albuquerque for the race, as preparation for a stout three-car assault on Le Mans.
There is a lot going on in Audi land, that’s for sure, but this is a crack unit, and only a fool would write them off at this early stage. No team with the calibre of drivers that Audi boasts are ever going to be out of the fight.
Had the weather in Silverstone been better, we may well have been dissecting a dominant Audi 1-2 victory.
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