Practice report
WEC Nürburgring
Nurburgring WEC: Porsche fight back
Porsche emerged fastest in the final Free Practice session at the Nurburgring this morning, sounding a warning to rivals Audi who topped both of yesterday’s sessions.
Published: Aug 29, 2015, 9:26 AM
Copy link
Share on Viber
Unlike the slender margins between the two German marques yesterday, Porsche controlled the session from the get go, with Romain Dumas laying down an initial marker of 1m37.727s, before teammate Marc Lieb went even faster to top the times on a 1m36.036s in the No.18 Porsche 919 Hybrid. This was 0.6s quicker than the sister Porsche 919 Hybrid in which Mark Webber set the best time of 1m36.647s.
It was incident filled session which involved the No.18 Porsche which was involved in contact with the No.83 AF Corse Ferrari driven by Francois Perrodo. Contact at turn two resulted in a left rear puncture for the Ferrari, and Romain Dumas also had to pit for minor repairs.
Just after this there were two other incidents. The first was the on-track stoppage of the No.13 Rebellion Racing LMP1 driven by Daniel Abt, which brought out a Full Course Yellow.
More or less at the same time, Paul Dalla Lana suffered a puncture and stopped his Aston Martin Vantage V8 which returned to the paddock on a flatbed truck.
Audi placed third and fourth with the quickest R18 etron quattro setting a 1m37.035s lap with Lucas di Grassi at the wheel.
The No.7 Audi, which topped both of yesterday’s sessions, placed fourth with Marcel Fassler claiming a 1m37.109. The three-time Le Mans winner’s time at the wheel also included a slow speed spin at turn two.
Toyota continued to operate in what was essentially a class of their own behind the top two manufacturers. The 2014 champions, who have ceased all major development on the Toyota TS 040 again placed fifth and sixth with Sebastien Buemi and Alex Wurz setting the times respectively.
The LMP1 privateer battle between Rebellion Racing and ByKolles started to hot up with a reduced gap between the two protagonists. The No.13 led the way but its sister No.12 R-One-AER and the ByKolles CLM P1/01 were just a few tenths of a second behind.
Both Daniel Abt and Alexander Imperatori stopped temporarily on the track after hitting apparent technical problems during the session.
The LMP2 Strakka Gibson finished the session in class P1 with Jonny Kane setting a 1m45.720s lap which was the fastest LMP2 time of the weekend.
This time was just under a tenth of a second faster than Nick Tandy’s best in the Le Mans winning KCMG ORECA 05-Nissan.
Third in LMP2 was the No.28 G-Drive Racing Ligier-Nissan driven by impressive Brazilian WEC rookie Pipo Derani.
Ferrari left it late in LMGTE Pro with reigning champion Gianmaria Bruni setting a 1m54.331s lap to lead the times in the No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia.A 1m54.481s lap by James Calado in the No.71 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia was good enough for second spot in the LMGTE Pro class.
The British former Force India F1 test driver deposed the No.99 Aston Martin of Alex MacDowell into third position.
The LMGTE Am category saw a clear leader in the shape of the Abu-Dhabi Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR driven by Ring specialist Earl Bamber. The German set a time one second ahead of the rest of the competition with a 1m55.288s.
Qualifying for the 6 Hours of Nurburgring gets underway at 14.00 local time with 20-minute split LMP1/2 and LMGTE sessions.
FP3 Results:
Pos Drivers Car Time Gap Laps 1 Romain Dumas
Neel Jani
Marc Lieb Porsche 1'36.036 25 2 Timo Bernhard
Mark Webber
Brendon Hartley Porsche 1'36.647 0.611 27 3 Lucas di Grassi
Loïc Duval
Oliver Jarvis Audi 1'37.035 0.999 28 4 Marcel Fässler
André Lotterer
Benoît Tréluyer Audi 1'37.109 1.073 23 5 Anthony Davidson
Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima Toyota 1'38.850 2.814 23 6 Alexander Wurz
S.Sarrazin
Mike Conway Toyota 1'39.893 3.857 23 7 A.Imperatori
D.Kraihamer
Daniel Abt Rebellion/AER 1'43.504 7.468 21 8 Nicolas Prost
Mathias Beche
Nick Heidfeld Rebellion/AER 1'43.601 7.565 16 9 Simon Trummer
Pierre Kaffer CLM/AER 1'43.983 7.947 22 10 Nick Leventis
Danny Watts
Jonny Kane Dome/Nissan 1'45.720 9.684 26 11 Matt Howson
Richard Bradley
Nick Tandy ORECA/Nissan 1'45.802 9.766 26 12 Gustavo Yacamán
Luis Derani
Ricardo González Ligier/Nissan 1'46.161 10.125 24 13 N.Panciatici
Paul-Loup Chatin
V.Capillaire Alpine/Nissan 1'46.730 10.694 26 14 Roman Rusinov
Julien Canal
Sam Bird Ligier/Nissan 1'46.983 10.947 26 15 Pierre Ragues
Oliver Webb
Archie Hamilton Morgan/SARD 1'47.269 11.233 24 16 Scott Sharp
Ryan Dalziel
David Hansson Ligier/HPD 1'47.670 11.634 20 17 Ed Brown
J.van Overbeek
Jon Fogarty Ligier/HPD 1'48.067 12.031 24 18 Gianmaria Bruni
Toni Vilander Ferrari 1'54.331 18.295 25 19 Davide Rigon
James Calado Ferrari 1'54.481 18.445 25 20 Fernando Rees
Alex MacDowall
Richie Stanaway Aston Martin 1'54.803 18.767 21 21 Patrick Pilet
F.Makowiecki Porsche 1'54.955 18.919 23 22 Christian Ried
K.Al Qubaisi
Earl Bamber Porsche 1'55.288 19.252 26 23 Marco Sørensen
C.Nygaard Aston Martin 1'55.299 19.263 22 24 Richard Lietz
M.Christensen Porsche 1'55.354 19.318 22 25 Darren Turner
Stefan Mücke
Jonathan Adam Aston Martin 1'55.505 19.469 27 26 Paul Dalla Lana
Pedro Lamy
Mathias Lauda Aston Martin 1'55.733 19.697 15 27 François Perrodo
Emmanuel Collard
Rui Águas Ferrari 1'56.246 20.210 23 28 Viktor Shaitar
Andrea Bertolini
Aleksey Basov Ferrari 1'56.295 20.259 20 29 Patrick Dempsey
Patrick Long
Marco Seefried Porsche 1'56.310 20.274 23 30 Gianluca Roda
Paolo Ruberti
Kristian Poulsen Chevrolet 1'57.959 21.923 20 31 F.Castellacci
Roald Goethe
Stuart Hall Aston Martin 1'58.485 22.449 24
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Good start for the two Porsche 919 Hybrids at the Nürburgring
Next article Nurburgring WEC: Porsche lock out front row
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Romain Dumas
Ford SuperVan claims Goodwood Festival of Speed Shootout glory
Goodwood Festival of Speed
Goodwood Festival of Speed
Ford SuperVan claims Goodwood Festival of Speed Shootout glory
Le Mans winner Dumas joins Proton Porsche for Daytona return
IMSA
IMSA
Le Mans winner Dumas joins Proton Porsche for Daytona return
More from
Porsche Team
Antonio Felix da Costa defends Jaguar, says Pascal Wehrlein took Jake Dennis out “on purpose”
Formula E
Formula E
London ePrix II
Antonio Felix da Costa defends Jaguar, says Pascal Wehrlein took Jake Dennis out “on purpose”
Pascal Wehrlein: Jaguar wanted to "destroy my race” in controversial London finale
Formula E
Formula E
London ePrix II
Pascal Wehrlein: Jaguar wanted to "destroy my race” in controversial London finale
Pascal Wehrlein responds to Porsche’s team tactics after dominant London win
Formula E
Formula E
London ePrix I
Pascal Wehrlein responds to Porsche’s team tactics after dominant London win
Latest news
Why NASCAR's indecision led to Dodge's decision to return to Cup
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Martinsville II
47 min
Why NASCAR's indecision led to Dodge's decision to return to Cup
Dodge announces return to NASCAR Cup Series in 2027
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup 4 h
Dodge announces return to NASCAR Cup Series in 2027
Justin Allgaier confirms he will return for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Martinsville II
4 h
Justin Allgaier confirms he will return for 2027 NASCAR O'Reilly season
NASCAR Cup Homestead finale to feature full field of 40 cars
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Martinsville II
7 h
NASCAR Cup Homestead finale to feature full field of 40 cars
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe