Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Going into the 6 Hours of Bahrain, the No. 17 Porsche was a clear favourite to take the 2015 WEC Drivers’ Championship.
It had won the four previous races, had a fourteen point lead over its only championship rival (No. 7 Audi), and would be starting from pole position.
All in all, things were looking good for Timo Bernhard, Brendan Hartley, and Mark Webber.
The lights went out at 15:00 local time, and the No. 17 pulled away effortlessly from its sister car, the two Audis and Toyotas.
Though the No. 8 Audi found some pace early on, going from fourth to second in only a matter of laps, No. 7 was left struggling under the scorching Bahraini sun.
As such, a half hour in and the race couldn’t be going any better for No. 17. Unfortunately for Porsche, this was as good as it was going to get.
Quite ironically, lap 17 saw No. 17 slow to almost a snail’s pace, its rivals passing by like mad hares.
An engine actuator problem had struck the car and saw it having to pit. The issue took close to ten minutes to fix, and when they returned to the track, the No. 17 was dead last across all classes.
Two hours later the car had passed all of the GTAM, GTPRO, and LMP2 runners, and was sitting in sixth place overall. However, at the time, it wasn’t good enough to win the championship.
Though it struggled in the early hours of the race, by the time the sun had set and the circuit floodlights had been turned on, No. 7 was leading from the second Audi and No. 18 Porsche.
The No. 8 fended off the Porsche a number of times, protecting its sister’s chance at the crown. But fate swung in favour of the No. 17 once again, and saw the No. 8 incapacitated by a brake disc failure.
With the Audi having to pit for an extended period of time, the No. 17 was able to un-lap itself and take fifth, its chances of seizing glory raising ever so slightly.
But No. 7 still led, and as such, would still be the champion come the chequered flag if all remained the same.
No. 18 had other ideas though, fighting and taking the lead from Audi, and ensuring that fifth place would be ‘good enough’ for No. 17.
Although No. 18 had No. 7 covered, problems struck the championship leader once again with an hour left to go in the race.
A relatively quick pit stop discovered that part of the car’s hybrid system had failed, a failure that would see driver Mark Webber having to restart the car on track a number of times in the closing laps of the race.
With No. 7 in second and now a lap down on the No. 18 Porsche, No. 17 needed only to finish in eighth to secure the championship. But first they would have to complete the race, and that was far from a certainty.
As the final moments of the clock counted down, and the chequered flag appeared, the No. 18 Porsche took the win.
The No. 7 finished second, followed by the No. 2 Toyota.
No. 17 hobbled to the end in fifth, bagging the 10 points, and finishing five points clear of the No. 7 Audi in the championship.
After the race, an elated Mark Webber said:
"It was super stressful, but thank God we got our car home. It wasn’t the cleanest day, but we had enough points and had enough wins this year to be world champions."
Porsche, in only their second year back in LMP1 competition, have taken both the Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ Championships in 2015.