Rebellion Breaks Through for Shanghai Win

Photo: Adrenal Media/WEC

Rebellion Racing has claimed its first overall FIA World Endurance Championship victory on the road in Sunday’s 4 Hours of Shanghai.

Bruno Senna took the No. 1 Rebellion R13 Gibson to a 1-minute, 6-second victory over the No. 8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Kazuki Nakajima following a dominant run by the Swiss-flagged, ORECA-run privateer squad.

While having started from pole, a deemed jump start by three of the five LMP1 cars in the field saw Norman Nato drop to sixth at the time, before recovering to fifth during his opening stint where he struggled on tires.

Co-driver Gustavo Menezes took over the lead early in the second hour after utilizing the superior straight-line speed of the LMP1 non-hybrid to get around the No. 8 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi.

The American solidified his margin to more than 20 seconds over the Toyota before handing over to Senna for the final 1 hour and 45 minutes of the race.

It marked the second outright victory for Rebellion in WEC competition following Toyota’s double disqualification at Silverstone in 2018 and the Japanese manufacturer’s first loss on the road in more than two years.

Senna, meanwhile, becomes the first driver to win in all four classes in the WEC.

Buemi, Nakajima and Brendon Hartley benefitted from a drive-through penalty for the sister No. 7 Toyota in the second hour after it was determined Kamui Kobayashi, along with the pair of Team LNT Ginetta G60-LT-P1 AERs jumped the start.

Charlie Robertson and Ben Hanley stretched out into a commanding 1-2 run in the opening hour until fading in their second stints prior to taking the penalties.

Both of the Ginettas lost further ground during its pit stops, including Robertson over-shooting his pit box in the second hour, which helped propel the No. 5 entry of Hanley and co-drivers Jordan King and Egor Orudzhev to a fourth place result.

All five LMP1 cars finished within two laps of each other, with each team leading at one point of the race.

JOTA Takes Commanding 1-2 Finish in LMP2

Anthony Davidson, Antonio Felix Da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez gave JOTA its first class win of the season in LMP2, leading home a 1-2 finish for the British-run squad.

Da Costa finished 17 seconds clear of the JOTA-run No. 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson of Gabriel Aubry, Ho-Pin Tung and Will Stevens.

Stevens led the early stages of the race until getting overtaken by Davidson at the end of the opening hour.

It marked the first WEC class win for Goodyear in only its third race in the series.

The No. 22 United Autosports Oreca of Filipe Albuquerque, Paul Di Resta and Phil Hanson completed the podium, bouncing back from an early unscheduled pit stop due to a power loss from debris in the engine box.

The class pole-sitting Cool Racing Oreca, meanwhile, was the race’s only retirement, due to a FIA-supplied telemetry failure.

RESULTS: 4H Shanghai

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John