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Geoffrey Harris31 Mar 2014
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Webber's Porsche on the money

The sports car Australia's recently-retired Formula One driver is to race this year has topped a big test in France, where the Le Mans 24-Hour is little more than 10 weeks away
919 edges Audis and Toyotas at Paul Ricard
Mark Webber will go to Le Mans in 2½ months with a Porsche that has the pace to match the long-dominant Audis and the Toyotas.
But winning the world's greatest sports car race demands reliability for 24 hours as well as speed – and whether Porsche has that combination will be answered only at the 13.629km French circuit on June 14-15.
The new 919 model that Webber is driving in his return to sports car racing has topped a two-day test for World Endurance Championship entries at another French circuit, Paul Ricard (pictured). The best lap of the test was recorded with New Zealander Brendon Hartley driving that car, but Webber and German sports car veteran Timo Bernhard were almost as fast in it.
Nine-time Formula One grand prix winner Webber has gone back to sports cars after two horrifying crashes at Le Mans in 1999 driving the Mercedes CLR that was subsequently outlawed.
There are two six-hour WEC rounds before this year's Le Mans – the first at Britain's Silverstone circuit on April 20, the other at Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps on May 3. A test day at Le Mans will be held on June 1.  
Audi has dominated the sports car classic this century, winning 12 times since 2000. Toyota's challenge has come up short the past two years, but it is back with a car producing almost 1000 horsepower while reportedly using 25 per cent less fuel.
Porsche is returning to Le Mans after 16 years without having entered factory cars in the event's top class.
All three manufacturers are running hybrid four-wheel-drive machinery.
The two Porsches completed a combined 614 laps at Paul Ricard over the weekend.
"This test was a big milestone," Webber said. "To enter two cars for the first time was a tremendous amount of hard work for the crew on the operational side.
"Smooth running was a well-deserved award and a good tonic for the guys after a long week. Every day we run we find more areas to improve, which is very encouraging.
"The track lay-out at Paul Ricard seemed to suit our car very well. I'm curious now to find out how we can perform in Silverstone."
The 919 – a car Porsche executives say is the most complicated the company has built – combines a battery pack and Formula One-style hybrid energy system similar to what it uses in the 918 supercar with a turbocharged V4 engine, a configuration chosen to save weight and space.
Porsche tested the 919 for three days at Paul Ricard last week before the all-in WEC test at the weekend, giving it five days of track time in the past week.
Hartley's time that topped the sheets, 1 minute 41.289 seconds, was set at night, while his co-drivers Webber and Bernhard both bettered 1:42.
Audi's R18 e-tron quattro turned in a best lap of 1:42.073 with German Andre Lotterer – once a teammate of V8 Supercar driver James Courtney in Formula Three in Europe – at the wheel.
Porsche's second car was third fastest in the hands of Frenchman Romain Dumas, while the best of the Toyota TS040s was fourth.
Audi – with its 4-litre, turbocharged V6 diesels paired with a flywheel hybrid system powering the front wheels for maximum fuel efficiency and a second system that recaptures energy from the heat of the exhausts – headed the field on the second day of the test, when times were slower.
Autosport.com reported that the three factory teams each downplayed the significance of the test.
"Porsche was running low downforce, Toyota had one TS040 in Le Mans aero configuration and one in sprint spec, and Audi tested with high-downforce aerodynamics," Autosport's sports car specialist Gary Watkins reported. "The results of the test were further confused over the fuel allocation awarded to the turbo-diesel Audi and the Porsche and the Toyota."
While Porsche team principal Andreas Seidl had been wary before the WEC test about the 919's endurance, Watkins commented that it "looks reliable".
"The two 919s ran without significant problems until the final of the five sessions when an engine problem delayed the #14 car [not Webber's], which then lost a wheel on its first lap out of the pits," he said.
Last week Porsche downgraded the amount of hybrid energy the 919 will run. It had announced its intention to race the model in the highest of the four subclasses of recovered energy, which allows for eight megajoules to be used per lap at Le Mans. However, it has been homologated for the season in the 6MJ division.
"We designed a system to see what was possible and with that system it's not really possible to achieve 8MJ. That is why we have homologated the car at 6MJ," Porsche's sports car racing technical director Alex Hitzinger said.
Porsche denied making a U-turn, saying the 8MJ class had only been a goal. The 919 is now in the same class as Toyota, which opted against 8MJ for weight reasons, while Audi is only running one energy retrieval system and will race in the smallest of the four hybrid categories allowing for 2MJ.
Toyota's move to two energy-retrieval systems has enabled it to achieve 50 per cent more hybrid power with its TS040 than its previous TS030. Toyota's normally-aspirated V8 – now 3.7 litres, up from 3.4 – produces 520PS (512bhp) and then it has 480PS (473bhp) available from its front and rear-axle hybrid systems.
The Japanese manufacturer is using a Denso motor-generator at the rear and a version of the AISIN AW unit at the front. It has retained the TS030's super-capacitor energy storage system.
Toyota's lead driver, Austrian ex-F1 racer Alex Wurz, has said the TS040 is "phenomenal, extremely powerful ... it feels like a rocketship".
World Endurance Championship calendar
April 20 – Silverstone Six-Hour, Great Britain.
May 3 – Spa-Francorchamps Six-Hour, Belgium.
June 14-15 – Le Mans 24-Hour, France.
August 31 – Sao Paulo Six-Hour, Brazil.
September 20 – Circuit of the Americas Six-Hour, US.
October 12 – Fuji Six-Hour, Japan.
November 1– Shanghai Six-Hour, China.
November 15 – Bahrain Six-Hour, Middle East.
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Written byGeoffrey Harris
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