FIA WEC: Six Hours Of Nürburgring Preview

The FIA World Endurance Championship returns from its summer break this weekend with the Six Hours of Nürburgring.

Nürburgring is a new addition to the series, though the 3.2-mile track is well-known for having hosted Formula One races. Most recently Le Mans Prototypes and GT cars raced there from 2004 to 2009 in the European Le Mans Series and in 2000 as an international round of the American Le Mans Series. Besides that, the FIA World Sportscar Championship regularly had a 1000-kilometer race at Nürburgring from 1953 to 1991.

The No. 7 Audi Sport Team Joest crew of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer are leading the drivers’ championship entering the weekend in Germany. After winning the first two rounds of the season, they finished third at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, behind two of the Porsches. Le Mans winners Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber and Nico Hülkenberg are next behind the Audi trio in drivers’ standings, though none of them are contracted for more races in LMP1. The closest full-time drivers to the championship leaders are the No. 18 Porsche Team crew of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani, 23 points behind. The No. 7 Audi’s title campaign may be compromised by the penalty of an engine seal violation at Le Mans, allowing them to use only one new engine for the remainder of the season without a penalty.

In the manufacturers’ championship, Porsche leads followed by Audi at 16 points behind. The defending champion Toyota hasn’t been competitive against those two this year and has achieved only 71 points compared to Porsche’s 140. Nissan made their WEC debut at Le Mans, though will not be at the Nürburgring as they concentrate on testing the GT-R LM Nismo until further notice.

In LMP2 Matthew Howson and Richard Bradley, the full-time drivers of the Le Mans-winning KCMG team, lead the drivers’ championship entering this weekend. They will be joined at the Nürburgring by the Le Mans overall winner Nick Tandy. In second place in the LMP2 standings is the No. 28 G-Drive Racing crew of Gustavo Yacamán, Ricardo González and Pipo Derani, who are four points behind the leaders.

Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander, the full-time drivers of the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari, lead the drivers’ championship. Four points behind them are the full-time drivers of the No. 71 sister car, Davide Rigon and James Calado. The GTE-Am crew of the No. 72 SMP Racing Ferrari is third; Aleksey Basov, Viktor Shaitar and Andrea Bertolini are nine points behind Bruni and Vilander, largely thanks to finishing highest of all full-season GT entries at Le Mans and thus scoring full points.