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Shanghai Shake-up: Sarrazin 2nd and Buemi 3rd on poor day for Audi

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The eighth and penultimate round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship at Shanghai once again saw the participation of several Formula E drivers. While Toyota’s Stéphane Sarrazin and Sébastien Buemi could celebrate podium finishes, the majority of the Formula E contingent had races to forget as Porsche clinched the LMP1 Manufacturers’ Championship.

The race overall in Shanghai was won by the Porsche trio of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley, who dominated proceedings and helped clinch the Manufacturers’ crown for the German marque. Behind them, the two Toyota cars rounded out the podium – albeit 59.785 and 66.038 seconds behind respectively. The #6 machine, that Venturi‘s Stéphane Sarrazin shares with his former Formula E team-mate Mike Conway and Japanese racer Kamui Kobayashi, came home in 2nd place from 4th on the grid.

The sister car, the #5 machine driven by Renault e.damsSébastien Buemi along with Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima, came home 6.253 seconds further back in P3, having qualified second. Neither Toyota crew could keep pace with the leading Porache, so two podium places was a good return for the Japanese manufacturer. And the trio of Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi still have a chance of taking the Drivers’ Championship from the leading Porsche trio of Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas, who finished a quiet 4th in China.

Meanwhile in Audi’s penultimate race in the championship before withdrawing at the end of 2016, they did not enjoy their Shanghai adventure. Lucas di Grassi of ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport started the #8 machine in 3rd, and was running in P2 for most of the opening stages. But a refuelling problem on the car meant that team-mates Loïc Duval (Dragon Racing) and Oliver Jarvis lost time in all of the following stints, and they came home in a distant 5th place. The 6 Hours of Bahrain later this month will be Audi’s swansong in LMP1 racing, and they will hope to go out with a win.

The only Formula E representative in the GTE Pro class is DS Virgin Racing‘s British racer Sam Bird, but like di Grassi and Duval he suffered a disappointing day in the #71 AF Corse Ferrari he shares with Davide Rigon. They qualified P6 in class, 1.3 seconds off pole, and could not match the pace of the dominant Ford cars that finished 1-2 in class. A fifth place finish was the result, in a race Bird called “One of, if not the toughest days I’ve had in a racing car.”

After Sarrazin and Buemi, the only other Formula E racer who stood on the podium was former Mahindra Racing driver Bruno Senna in the LMP2 class, who piloted the #43 RGR Sport by Morand machine to 3rd in class (10th overall) alongside Filipe Albuquerque and Ricardo González. Panasonic Jaguar Racing‘s reserve driver, and former Team China Racing (now NextEV) racer Ho-Pin Tung was able to come home 8th in class and 13th overall in the #35 Baxi DC Racing Alpine car he shares with David Cheng and Paul-Loup Chatin.

There was another Panasonic Jaguar Racing representative in action in the GTE Am class, as Adam Carroll was not able to prevent the #86 Gulf Racing Porsche he shares with Michael Wainwright and Ben Barker finishing 6th and last in class.

The final round of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship takes place in Bahrain in two weeks’ time on Saturday 19th November. Can Sarrazin, Conway and Kobayashi take the Drivers’ Championship? Can Audi have a winning farewell before focusing on Formula E next year? Time will tell.

Laurence Thorn | e-racing.net

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Images courtesy of Rajan Jangda

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