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Geoffrey Harris20 Aug 2018
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Matt Campbell wins Silverstone Six Hour

A second WEC class win for Le Mans winning Aussie as Toyota dominates sports car and world rally championships

Australia’s Matt Campbell has notched another class win for Porsche in the World Endurance Championship, following up on his triumph in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Queenslander Campbell, 23, and his co-drivers – experienced German Christian Ried and 19-year-old Frenchman Julien Andlauer – took the honours in the GTE Am class again at the Six Hours of Silverstone in Britain.

They race a Porsche 911 RSR for American actor Patrick Dempsey’s customer team.

They were more than a minute off the lead in third place going into the last hour but claimed victory after the two cars ahead of them, an Aston Martin and another Porsche, incurred 75-second stop-go penalties for pitting under the safety car.

The victory stretched the trio’s lead in the championship that extends to the next Le Mans in mid-2019.

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“We were very lucky but happy to get the win,” Campbell said. “The track was very difficult at the last stint, but we got there in the end and that’s what matters.”

Toyota took its third straight one-two success in the WEC’s premier sports car class, LMP1, with its TS050 HYBRIDs which have no real competition since the withdrawal of Porsche and Audi over the past two years.

It also meant a hat-trick of wins for Fernando Alonso, the Spanish two-time world champion quitting Formula 1 at the end of this season after five years without a grand prix victory. Alonso’s WEC teammates are Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi and Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima.

Toyota on top in WRC

Toyota is now the form team in the World Rally Championship too, with its Estonian driver Ott Tanak winning the four-day tarmac round in Germany by almost 40 seconds three weeks after his success in Rally Finland.

It is Tanak’s third win in his first season driving a Yaris for the team run by multiple world champion Tommi Makinen.

Hyundai’s Belgian driver Thierry Neuville inherited an unexpected second place in Germany after Finn Jari-Matti Latvala retired his Yaris with hydraulic problems and Spaniard Dani Sordo’s Hyundai i20 dropped out with engine damage after crashing. That left young Finn Esapekka Lappi to finish third in another Yaris.

Toyota is now up to second in the manufacturer standings with 241 points, just 13 points behind Hyundai, while reigning champion M-Sport Ford has dropped to third and Citroen is a distant fourth after yet another miserable event with its C3s.

M-Sport’s French superstar Sebastien Ogier, the world champion of the past five years (the first four times with now-departed Volkswagen) dropped to ninth place in the German event on Saturday when he had to stop to change a damaged wheel, but he recovered to fourth and claimed five extra points for winning the final power stage.

That meant Neuville, fifth on the power stage, only stretched his drivers’ championship lead by two points to 23 (172-149), with Tanak – runner-up on the power stage – third on 136.

Power on IndyCar pole

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Australia’s Indianapolis 500 victor Will Power equalled the 53 IndyCar pole positions of the legendary AJ Foyt in qualifying for today’s 500-mile (800km) race at Pocono, Pennsylvania.

Only Mario Andretti has had more poles in the North American open-wheeler category with 67.

“I never thought I’d be up in that sort of company,” said 37-year-old Power said. “To be next to AJ Foyt's name … so amazing!”

Team owner Roger Penske confirmed at the weekend that he is retaining his three IndyCar drivers for next year – Power, who has been with him since 2009, the reigning series champion, American Josef Newgarden, and 2016 champion, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud.

“I’m very happy – everything is good and I’m with the best team in racing,” said Power, who has scored 29 of his 32 victories and 48 of his pole positions driving for Penske.

There had been speculation that Canadian rookie Robert Wickens may have replaced Pagenaud. Not only was that misplaced but Wickens was airlifted to hospital after a first-lap crash at Pocono’s ‘Tricky Triangle’ this morning, Australian time.

Power rejected criticism from several drivers that he had made a slow start from the pole and contributed to the brutal crash that red-flagged the race for about an hour.

“[I was driving at the] exact speed they wanted – 107mph (156.9km/h),” Power said.

“I actually went before the start zone. (New Zealand’s championship leader) Scott Dixon was the one trying to get a big run, as he blames me – but I’ve got the data.

“[I] never ever faulted on speed. It wasn’t a late start. It was actually an early start and I maintained speed. It was the guys back there that tried to jump, if there was an issue.”

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Written byGeoffrey Harris
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