NEWS
MOTORSPORT: Webber upbeat after strong Le Mans
Engine failure ends strong run and almost certain podiumAlthough disappointed to be denied a podium result in his return to the Le Mans 24-hour, a "proud" Mark Webber has emerged from the sports car classic upbeat about the debut performance of the Porsche 919 Hybrid and the newly-formed factory team.
Webber, who joined Porsche's new World Endurance Championship attack in 2014 after 14 years in Formula One, was in contention for a shock win and more certainly on course for a podium until the car he was sharing with Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley broke its V4 turbo-petrol engine without warning with less than two hours to go.
"We still had a bit of work to do, but holy shit we had broken the back of a lot of the race and the engine was not on my mind," Webber said post-race.
"The engine has been tested pretty well, but there weren't many safety cars and it was a hard race on the engines".
The second Porsche 919 Hybrid went out shortly after Webber's car, also with some form of drivetrain issue.
A hectic and incident packed race was won by the Audi trio of Marcel Fassler, Andrew Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer, with team-mates Lucas di Grassi, Marc Gene and Tom Kristensen second in a car completely rebuilt after a huge Thursday crash. Both R18 e-tron quattros had the turbocharger in their diesel V6 engines changed during the race.
Meanwhile, the Toyota of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sebastien Buemi fought back from an early crash to finish third.
Toyota had looked a strong chance to break its duck at Le Mans until the leading TS040 of pole qualifier Kazuki Nakajima, Alex Wurz and Stephane Sarrazin suffered terminal electrical issues after 14 hours. Toyota now has zero wins from 16 starts while Audi has won 13 times since 2000.
Webber's Porsche led the race as late as the 22 hour mark, but had been overhauled by Audi by the time it ground to a halt.
"Audi and Toyota, gee they knocked seven bells out of each other early on," Webber said. "The pace was really quick. I think they actually knocked each other out."
While it was "awesome" to be in the lead, Webber said he never believed his crew would win the race.
"We were happy with the steps [of the podium], that would have been a big day for us."
Webber and his team-mates battled the handling of their car from the fifth hour onwards when the front anti-roll bar broke. That slowed the car by seconds per lap and the drivers ran off several times under brakes battling the problem.
But the team judged the time lost replacing the broken bar would have cost them any chance of victory.
"We had an issue with the front of the car from 8pm last night and we just could not get the balance, something was wrong at the front and it would have taken a lot of time to change it so we just had to press on although we lost a lot of speed in the car.
"We had to do something different, so it was fuel and tyres for 15 hours and then the engine has got a bit tired in the end."
This is Webber's third attempt at Le Mans and his first since he spectacularly flipped twice in 1999 driving a factory Mercedes-AMG. He has yet to finish the event.
He was clearly rankled when asked whether he was starting to think the race was "a bit of bugger".
"No I am not, a very typical Aussie question that mate, but no I am not. Very positive. We had a f...ing great day out there today.
"You are saying you've had three years here and you haven't had a result is it a hoodoo circuit. Rubbish.
"Anyway, back next year we'll give it a good crack, we'll go from there."
Apart from that spike, Webber was otherwise calm and 'on message' during his 10-minute post-race scrum with Aussie media.
"I just feel for the boys, a lot of young mechanics and the hard yards that have gone in at Weissach, everywhere. It's hard to explain the man-hours that have gone in to get to that level are astronomical and they have absolutely busted themselves.
"And they got within a sniff of a pretty special result."
Related reading: Wrap up of 2014 Le Mans 24 hour
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Written byBruce Newton
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