Only two weeks after the Porsche 919 Hybrid’s winning debut race in Mexico City, the FIA World Endurance Championship heads to Austin, Texas. On Saturday, September 17th, the sixth of nine rounds of the 2016 WEC will take place on the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) – for Porsche it is the next stop on its title defence mission.
The demanding track is known as the favourite of the modern Formula One circuits. High ambient temperatures can be expected and the timing for the race provides an extra challenge: The six-hour race will start at 17:00 hours with sunset being at 19:32 hours.
Porsche leads the manufacturers’ world championship having won four races in 2016 – Silverstone, Le Mans, the Nürburgring and Mexico City. It is the third season for the innovative Porsche 919 Hybrid. During this year’s five championship rounds Porsche has scored 201 points, Audi is second (158) and Toyota follows in third position (112).
In the drivers’ world championship, this year’s Le Mans winning trio of Romain Dumas, Neel Jani, and Marc Lieb has extended its lead to 41 points ahead of the best placed Toyota drivers. The second Porsche works drivers crew of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley, and Mark Webber recently achieved two consecutive race wins and improved to fifth in the standings. The reigning World Champions have scored 53.5 points.
“This year’s World Championship has shown an extremely tight competition,” said Fritz Enzinger, Vice President LMP1. “These long distance WEC races are close battles on the highest sporting and technical levels right up to the very last minute. In Mexico the top four LMP1 cars qualified within three tenths of a second and after the race all three manufacturers had a crew on the podium. We are the hunted and by no means can we ease up in our title defence.”
Team Principal Andreas Seidl added: “In 2015 our Porsche 919 Hybrids dominated in Austin, but this is not what we can expect to happen this year. Nevertheless, we believe that COTA’s fast curves will suit our 919 well. Austin is always especially demanding for the drivers and the entire team. Practice sessions are late, the race goes on until 23:00 hrs and normally it is very hot.”