Class wins for Bird and Senna in dramatic WEC opener

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Twelve Formula E racers past and present took to the track at Silverstone last weekend for the opening round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC), one of the fastest growing series in the world of motorsport. It was a race full of ups and downs for the Formula E contingent, but both Sam Bird and Bruno Senna were able to celebrate class victories by the time the chequered flag fell.

With eight drivers in the top LMP1 class, the chances of a racer from the all-electric series taking an overall win in Silverstone were good. However due to a variety of reasons, this did not materialise as Porsche’s trio of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb took victory, with the race-winning Audi driven by André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler being excluded due to excessive plank wear.

The highest finishing car with Formula E interest was the #6 Toyota that Venturi duo Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway share with Kamui Kobayashi. Qualifying in P5 behind both Audi and both Porsche machines, as the Japanese manufacturer struggled on a wet track, the trio had a solid race, moving up the field as the German manufacturers each lost a car ahead. The race winning Audi was then excluded from the race, moving Sarrazin/Conway/Kobayashi up to the overall runners-up spot. The sister #5 car, which Renault e.Dams’ Sébastien Buemi shares with Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima, qualified sixth and could only finish down in P16 overall following a puncture suffered with Nakajima on board.

While the race-winning #7 Audi was excluded due to excessive plank wear, the sister #8 car driven by ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport’s Lucas di Grassi and Dragon Racing’s Loïc Duval alongside Oliver Jarvis, was not even able to finish the race. After qualifying P2 overall, the car suffered an energy retrieval system issue and a hybrid malfunction with di Grassi on board, and the Brazilian was forced to retire the car 125 laps from the end, before Duval even had the chance to get on board.

A Formula E trio competes in the #12 Rebellion Racing machine, with Renault e.Dams’ Nicolas Prost, Mahindra Racing’s Nick Heidfeld and debutant Nelson Piquet Jr, last season’s Formula E champion with NEXTEV TCR, sharing the privateer LMP1 car. After only qualifying down in P31, the talented trio could take full advantage of the drama ahead and move up to fourth overall (P2 in the LMP1 privateer class) behind team-mates Mathéo Tuscher, Alexandre Imperatori and Dominik Kraihamer in the #13 entry.

There was only one Formula E driver represented in the GT classes, with DS Virgin Racing‘s Sam Bird celebrating a perfect home race: in his debut for the factory Ferrari squad AF Corse, he and team-mate Davide Rigon took both the class pole and a dominant class win in the GTE Pro category in their #71 Ferrari 488 GTE, finishing the race ahead of team-mates Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado in the #51 car. This is Bird’s second class win in a row at the British circuit, as he won the LMP2 class here last year.

The LMP2 class has three Formula E representatives this time around, with one celebrating class pole and another the class win. Former Team Aguri racer Nathanaël Berthon watched on as team-mates René Rast and Roman Rusinov qualified G-Drive’s #26 machine on the class pole, and played his part during the race as the trio finished third in class, celebrating a hard-earned podium.

The #43 RGR by Morand machine piloted by Mahindra Racing’s Bruno Senna alongside Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo Gonzalez, meanwhile, had the exact opposite fortunes. They managed to turn a third place in qualifying into an excellent class win, half a minute ahead of the second placed Extreme Sports Motorsports car of Pipo Derani, Ryan Dalziel and Chris Cumming.

Rounding out the LMP2 class, former Team China Racing (now NEXTEV TCR) driver Ho-Pin Tung and his Baxi DC Racing Alpine team-mates David Cheng and Nelson Panciatici were able to qualify P10 in the competitive LMP2 class, and finish the race seventh in class, eleventh overall in the #35 machine.

The next WEC race is the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on the 7th of May.

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Images courtesy of Rajan Jangda/Adrenal Media

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