No. 8 Toyota Takes Dominant Portimao Victory

Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa took a dominant victory in the 6 Hours of Portimao, with Ferrari and Porsche completing the podium positions.

The No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid started the race from pole position and briefly dropped to third at the start as Buemi lost ground to teammate Mike Conway and the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of James Calado, but was back in the lead by the end of the opening hour.

As Toyota opened up a gap to the chasing pack, the No. 7 Toyota of Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez fell out of contention when a failure on a mandatory torque sensor forced the team to complete a left-side driveshaft swap.

From there, the No. 8 car cleared off to take its first win of the FIA World Endurance Championship season, finishing a full lap clear of the No. 50 Ferrari driven by Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen.

The No. 6 Porsche 963 of Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor finished third, securing the first WEC podium for Porsche Penske Motorsport on the same weekend it won the Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Third place came despite a late fuel stop for Lotterer, which still allowed the German manufacturer to finish well clear of Alex Lynn, Richard Westbrook and Earl Bamber who came home fourth aboard the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac V-Series.R.

Lynn captured fourth position with just over 30 minutes to go, taking advantage of ongoing brake issues for the No. 51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi.

The Italian squad battled problems with the front braking system from the third hour of the race and ran without brake-by-wire for much of the contest.

The issue steadily intensified until Pier Guidi lost braking power approaching the Turn 5 hairpin in the final hour, missing the corner and allowing Lynn through.

From there, Pier Guidi nursed the car to the line in sixth, losing fifth to the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 of Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and Nico Mueller in the process.

The sister No. 93 Peugeot finished the race in seventh after starting from the pit lane due to a power steering issue, ahead of the Glickenhaus 007 Pipo and the No. 7 Toyota.

The Vanwall Vandervell 680 Gibson retired after Jacques Villeneuve spun into the Turn 10 barriers when he encountered brake failure, causing the only safety car.

The No. 5 Porsche was classified last overall after power steering issues consigned it to the garage with over five hours of running completed.

United Autosports Wins LMP2; GTE-Am Goes to the Wire

United Autosports took a 1-2 victory in LMP2, with the No. 23 Oreca 07 Gibson of Oliver Jarvis, Giedo van der Garde and Josh Pierson winning from the sister squad of Phil Hanson, Frederick Lubin and Ben Hanley.

The victory allowed the Anglo-American squad to bounce back from retirement at Sebring, where a strong run was curtailed by a freak electrical failure.

The No. 23 car took the flag just 0.684 seconds ahead of the sister car, with the No. 41 Team WRT car of Rui Andrade, Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz third.

Prema’s No. 63 car, piloted by Doriane Pin, Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat, finished fourth after initially leading until the last round of stops.

However, shorter fuel stops allowed both Jarvis and Hanson to vault ahead of Kvyat, who was then also passed by Deletraz in an overtake that saw the two cars briefly make contact.

Hertz Team JOTA completed the top five with the No. 48 Oreca 07 Gibson of David Beckmann, Yifei Ye and Antonio Felix da Costa, making his first WEC outing of the year.

Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone came out on top in a nail-biting GTE-Am battle with Richard Mille AF Corse that was decided by less than half a second.

Catsburg, driving the No. 33 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R, spent much of the final hour under pressure from the No. 83 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Alessio Rovera, which the Italian shared with Luis Perez Companc and Lilou Wadoux.

It was interrupted by the safety car but then resumed with Rovera trying multiple times to overtake the Dutchman for the race lead.

The battle between the two factory drivers went to the final lap, with Catsburg finishing 0.26 seconds ahead of the Ferrari.

The No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Michelle Gatting, Sarah Bovy and Rahel Frey completed the top three in class.

RESULTS: 6 Hours of Portimao