The Six Hours of Nürburgring had began in the command of Porsche Team. The No. 18 Porsche lead the race for an hour and a half. After fuel flow sensor issue and subsequent penalties for the No. 18, the No. 17 Porsche inherited the lead.

For a full recap of the opening half of the race, click here. 

Fourth Hour

The fourth hour started with Patrick Pilet in the No. 92 Porsche battling past Davide Rigon in the No. 71 Ferrari. That pass gave Porsche Team Manthey a 1-2 lead in the GTE-Pro class.

The prototypes had their fourth scheduled stops during the fourth hour, but the standings in the front remained unchanged after the stops; the No. 17 Porsche lead the No. 7 Audi by one and a half minutes. The No. 8 Audi was 25 seconds from its sister car and the No. 18 Porsche further 10 seconds behind.

In LMP2, the No. 47 KCMG Oreca-Nissan again took the class lead after fourth stops. In GTE-Am, the lead cars had stopped three times by the end of the fourth hour with the No. 77 Dempsey - Proton Racing Porsche in the class lead.

Fifth Hour

Early in the fifth hour, the No. 18  Porsche overtook the No. 8 Audi for third place. Fifteen minutes into the fifth hour, Vincent Capillaire in the No. 36 Signatech Alpine car had an off, bringing out a full-course yellow to clean the gravel off the track. That full-course yellow brought most cars to pits for their penultimate pit stop.

By the end of the fifth hour, Neel Jani in the No. 18 Porsche had caught the second-placed Benoît Tréluyer of the No. 7 Audi. Meanwhile, fourth-placed Lucas Di Grassi in the No. 8 Audi was also catching them. Jani had two good attempts to pass Tréluyer without succeeding in it. The latter attempt allowed Di Grassi to immediately overtake him for third place when the race was going to its final hour.

Sixth Hour

After overtaking Jani, Di Grassi was following the second-placed teammate Tréluyer before overtaking him a few minutes later for the second place.

In the battle for second place, Audi Sport Team Joest had a split strategy for the final pit stops. They pitted the No. 7 before the No. 18 Porsche and the No. 8 after it. Still, they weren't able to keep the No. 18 Porsche behind. The No. 7 Audi, now driven by André Lotterer, managed to get past the No. 8 but only temporarily before Di Grassi overtook the No. 7 again to start the chase on the second-placed No. 18 Porsche of Marc Lieb.

Di Grassi didn’t have the pace to challenge Lieb and with three minutes remaining, drivers’ championship leader Lotterer passed Di Grassi for third place.

Porsche took a 1-2 win led by the No. 17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley. The German manufacturer also took a 1-2 win in GTE-Pro with their works team Porsche Team Manthey, led by the No. 91 Porsche 911 RSR of Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen.

Other class winners were Matthew Howson, Richard Bradley and Nick Tandy for KCMG in LMP2 and Victor Shaytar, Andrea Bertolini and Aleksey Basov of SMP Racing in GTE-Am.

The FIA World Endurance Championship continues  September 17-19 with the Six Hours of COTA. Follow @VAVELSportsCar on Twitter for continued coverage of the championship.


Kalle Tyynelä is a writer for the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @FINdyCar.

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Kalle Tyynelä
Motorsports and alpine skiing writer. Also interested in tennis and sports business.