Silverstone’s opening round of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship (the 25th race in FIA WEC history) kicked off the fourth year of the World Championship in spectacular fashion.
Qualifying
The pole position for the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid was the fourth consecutive pole position for the Porsche Factory team, the second consecutive pole position for the Webber/ Hartley/ Bernhard crew, the fifth overall pole position for the team and the eighth consecutive front row start.
This was the first time that Brendon Hartley has set the fastest overall time in Qualifying, a 1:39.534
Race
Lap Record
All three factory teams competing led the race, the LMP1 lap record was beaten repeatedly, this the 2013 mark set by Allan McNish at 1:42.767. Andre Lotterer’s new mark was a 1:40.836 – 210.7 km/h average.
Lotterer extends his record total of fastest race laps in the WEC to 9.
All six factory cars beat the previous lap record in the race.
Most Wins
The winning crew of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer extend their record race winning total to nine. They have now continued a streak of winning races in every FIA WEC season so far.
Audi extend their record race winning total to 14
Distance Record
The race winning distance of 201 laps for the #7 Audi is a new distance record for the WEC at Silverstone adding an astonishing 4 laps to the previous total, this in part thanks to the adoption of the ‘Full Course Yellow’ system.
The top four cars all beat the old distance record, it was equalled by the delayed fifth placed #7 Audi.
Podium Runs
The second place finish for the #18 Porsche of Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani was the fourth consecutive podium finish for this crew.
Anthony Davidson and Seb Buemi have scored two consecutive podiums.
Toyota extend a run of podium finishes to 13, the last time they didn’t finish on the podium was in Brazil in 2013 (where a Toyota engine Rebellion DID finish third!).
