24h Le Mans
Two years after leaving Formula One to become a Porsche factory driver, Mark Webber has achieved his first goal: to be world endurance champion. He and co-drivers Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley won a hard-fought battle that went down to the wire.
The team started the season with a pole position at Silverstone, then came third in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The winning streak began with the 6 Hours of Nürburgring. From then onwards, #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid was unstoppable, lifting the trophies at the Circuit of the Americas, Fuji and Shanghai. Yet the four wins were only just enough for the team to take the lead in the driver championship. The metronomic regularity of three-time Le Mans winners Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer in their #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro was a force to be reckoned with.
The Audi trio won Silverstone and Spa, and then finished in the top three all season. They almost clinched the title in the last round in Bahrain when the Porsche had technical issues. However, Webber and his teammates clawed back to fifth place relying on the #18 Porsche to fend off the Audi and win the race. Webber crossed the finish line as world endurance champion, ticking off the first goal on his new career to-do list.
The next one is to win the Le Mans 24 Hours. If he can pull off that feat, he will join a select group of drivers to have won both Le Mans and the Monaco Grand Prix, namely Tazio Nuvolari, Maurice Trintignant, Bruce McLaren, Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt.
Jean-Philippe Doret / ACO – Translated from French by Emma Paulay
Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, SUNDAY 14 JUNE 2015, RACE. Jacky Ickx congratulates Mark Webber (right, with cap). Both men were succesful Formula One drivers before becoming endurance racing champions.
