The 2016 6 Hours of Nürburgring (formally the WEC 6 Hours of Nürburgring) was a six-hour endurance sports car racing event held for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars at the Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany on 24 July 2016. The Nürburgring round served as the fourth race of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship, and was the second running of the event as part of the championship. A total of 58,000 people spectated the event.
The No. 7 Audi driven by André Lotterer and Marcel Fässler won the pole position by posting the fastest lap in qualifying and Fässler maintained the car's advantage throughout the race's early phase withstanding pressure from Timo Bernhard's No. 1 Porsche. Brendon Hartley took over the lead when both Audi cars had slow pit stops and held it until Marc Lieb in the sister Porsche moved past him, but later lost his advantage because he made a pit stop for dive plane repairs after damaging it while lapping a slower car. Mark Webber held the first position until Neel Jani in the sister No. 2 Porsche drew closer to him and passed him. However Jani was handed a drive-through penalty, giving the lead back to Webber. Bernhard later relieved Webber of his driving duties and held the lead for the remainder of the race to secure the victory. Audi's No. 8 car of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis finished second and their teammates Lotterer and Fässler took third.
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category was won by the Signatech Alpine of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi with Ricardo González, Filipe Albuquerque and Bruno Senna in RGR Sport's No. 36 in second. Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado's No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari took the victory in the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with Sam Bird and Davide Rigon in the sister No. 71 car second. Bruni took the class lead from Nicki Thiim in the No. 95 Aston Martin Racing car in the race's late period and held on to take his and Calado's first win of the season. The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana after they led the final 48 laps of the race to secure their second victory of the season, ahead of the No. 83 AF Corse of François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Rui Águas.
The result meant Lieb, Jani and Romain Dumas maintained their Drivers' Championship lead with 106 points, 33 ahead of second-place finishers Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis, and a further three in front of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi. Lotterer and Fässler remained in fourth place and Dominik Kraihamer, Alexandre Imperatori and Mathéo Tuscher rounded out the top five. Porsche remained in the lead of the Manufacturers' Championship but their advantage over Audi was reduced by two points and Toyota maintained third position with five races left in the season.
Background Entrants
A total of 33 cars were officially entered for the 6 Hours of Nürburgring, with the bulk of the entries in Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) and Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2). The 2015 race winners, Porsche, returned to defend their title. Three manufacturers, Porsche, Toyota and Audi Sport Team Joest, were represented in LMP1 by two cars each. Rebellion Racing and ByKolles Racing were the two representatives of the LMP1 privateer teams. Audi driver Benoît Tréluyer was forced to miss the race because of a spinal column injury he sustained after falling off his mountain bike in a training exercise. Audi chose not to employ a replacement which meant the team's 7 car would be driven by his co-drivers Marcel Fässler and André Lotterer as a two-person entry. It was the first World Endurance Championship race Tréluyer missed since he joined the series in 2012. Mathias Beche returned to the series full-time in the 2016 season, replacing Nelson Piquet Jr. who was under contract to participate in the season's first three races in Rebellion Racing's No. 12 car.
LMP2 consisted of 11 cars with 33 drivers in six different types of chassis. Following the departure of Nathanaël Berthon before the start of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Alex Brundle was signed by G-Drive to drive the team's No. 26 Oreca 05 alongside regular drivers Roman Rusinov and René Rast for the remainder of the season. Renault Sport Trophy competitor Lewis Williamson made his début appearance in the World Endurance Championship with Strakka Racing in its No. 42 Gibson 015S alongside Nick Leventis and Jonny Kane, replacing Danny Watts who remained part of the team for the rest of the year. Will Stevens was replaced by Antônio Pizzonia in Manor's No. 44 Oreca 05 and partnered regular co-driver Tor Graves. James Jakes was replaced by Manor with Matthew Howson who was selected because of his experience driving the team's car.
The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) field consisted of four manufacturers (Aston Martin, Ford, Ferrari and Porsche), while the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) entrants consisted of six teams: Aston Martin Racing, AF Corse, KCMG, Larbre Compétition, Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing and Gulf Racing. Aston Martin Racing made changes to the driver line-ups in their No. 95 and No. 97 cars to field two drivers in line with most other teams in the category. Darren Turner was moved to the No. 97 car alongside Richie Stanaway, while Nicki Thiim and Marco Sørensen remained in the team's No. 95 vehicle as a two-person crew. The change was made to give Aston Martin an increased chance of winning the World Endurance Cup for GT Drivers. Jonny Adam and Fernando Rees remained under contract with Aston Martin but were not slated to take part in any other races in the year; Adam concentrated on sharing a TF Sport car with Derek Johnson in the British GT Championship. Paolo Ruberti returned to compete in the No. 50 Larbre Compétition car after missing the 24 Hours of Le Mans due to injury, while Billy Johnson returned to North American racing.
Preview
The 6 Hours of Nürburgring was confirmed as part of the FIA World Endurance Championship's 2016 schedule in December 2015 in a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Paris. It was the fourth of nine scheduled endurance sports car rounds of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship, and the second running of the event as part of the championship. The race was held on 24 July at the Nürburgring GP-Strecke circuit with two preceding days of practice and qualifying. The Nürburgring GP-Strecke track layout, last modified in 2002, is long and is composed of sixteen corners. The 2016 running of the event saw the first usage of the tighter Veedol Chicane on the back straight in the World Endurance Championship as was previously used in Formula One.
Before the race Porsche drivers Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas led the Drivers' Championship with 94 points, 39 ahead of their nearest rivals Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis who were a further one in front of third-placed Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin. Lotterer, Fassler and Treulyer were fourth with 35 points and Dominik Kraihamer, Alexandre Imperatori and Mathéo Tuscher rounded out the top five on 30 points. Porsche were leading the Manufacturers' Championship with 127 points, 38 ahead of their nearest rival Audi in second while the third-placed manufacturer Toyota had accumulated 79 points. Porsche had so far dominated the championship, with Audi securing the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps victory. Kobayashi, Conway and Sarrazin had finished second twice, and Kraihmer, Imperatori and Tuscher had secured third-place finishes on two consecutive occasions.
Several teams made modifications to their cars in preparation for the event. Porsche introduced a third (and final) aerodynamic configuration that produced a large amount of downforce and less drag. It was tested and evaluated in a four-day test session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Most of the car's modifications were covered by its bodywork, giving it a new front-end appearance. Because of the track's short and tight layout, Toyota elected to début an ultra-high downforce specification along with updates to the car's front and rear bodywork developed at the team's wind tunnel at their motor sport headquarters in Cologne. In the Balance of performance adjustments, the Porsche 911 RSR's weight was decreased by and its engine power was lowered due to the vehicle's air restrictor being reduced in size by . The Aston Martin Vantage GTE was equipped with the larger diameter restrictor it ran with at Spa-Francorchamps.
Practice
Three were three practice sessions—one 90-minute session each on Friday morning and afternoon and a one-hour session on Saturday morning—preceding Sunday's race. Lap times were not comparable to the previous year's because of the usage of the slower Veedol Chicane. Lieb's No. 2 Porsche led the 90-minute period with a fastest lap time at 1:41.703, nearly a twentieth of a second faster than teammate Brendon Hartley in the first Porsche. LMP2 was led by Brundle in the No. 26 Manor vehicle with a lap of 1:50.748 which was recorded late in the session. James Calado in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari was quickest in LMGTE Pro while Pedro Lamy helped Aston Martin Racing to be fastest in LMGTE Am. The session was disrupted when the rear-left suspension on Nicolas Lapierre's No. 36 Signatech Alpine failed and went off into the exit of the turn one gravel trap which prompted the deployment of the full course yellow flag. A red flag was later shown as the race control system continued to show the latter as in operation.
In the second practice session, which took place in mild weather conditions and was later affected by rain on portions of the track, Mark Webber in the No. 1 Porsche set the fastest lap time of the day at 1:40.997 20 minutes in. He finished 0.014 seconds faster than the second-placed Fässler, who, in turn, was 0.125 seconds quicker than his teammate Loïc Duval in third. Dumas' car suffered a front-left brake disc failure, causing him to drive into the turn one barriers and damage the front-end of his car. This rendered him unable to take any further part in practice and triggered a full course yellow. Stéphane Richelmi's No. 36 Signatech Alpine led LMP2 early on but Rast ended it as the fastest driver in the class with a time of 1:48.965, more than a second faster than Brundle's Strakka car. LMGTE Pro was led by Stanaway in the No. 97 Aston Martin while Rui Águas' No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari was fastest in LMGTE Am. Lamy and David Cheng were summoned by the stewards to race control after the two made contact.
The third (and final) practice session was delayed three times for 45 minutes from its original start time because foggy weather conditions prevented the medical helicopter from flying. It was initially held on a damp track and some drizzle fell towards the session's end. Cars were equipped with intermediate tyres to start the session before switching to dry slick tyres when the track dried up. Webber set the fastest timed lap at 1:41.002 with 20 minutes of practice left, and was almost three-tenths of a second faster than Anthony Davidson in Toyota's No. 5 car. Duval spun the No. 8 Audi at the second turn late in the session. Rast was the fastest LMP2 driver with a lap of 1:50.260 in the session's final minute, and was nearly seven-tenths of a second quicker than Graves in Manor's No. 44 car. Gianmaria Bruni recorded the quickest time in LMGTE Pro, driving the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari, while David Heinemeier Hansson in the No. 88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche was the fastest driver in LMGTE Am, despite spinning in the session's closing minutes.
Qualifying