Both of the Toyota Racing LMP1-H entries took advantage of an early safety car period to top up on fuel which ensured that they completed the race on just five scheduled stops apiece. Sebastien Buemi drove a spectacular opening stint to carve his way through the field, despite having to make an extra visit to his pit box after the initial early stop. This was due to a re-fuelling issue but the Swiss ace soon caught and passed the sister Toyota driven by Alex Wurz. From there, Buemi and later Davidson both opened up a significant gap to their team mates in the #7 car.
Completing the podium today at Shanghai and, as a result scoring their first podium position of the season, was the #14 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani. The pole sitting car led in the early exchanges and had a trouble free race to finish just off the lead lap.
The #20 Porsche Team 919 Hybrid had led the race during the first stint but was soon delayed after Brendon Hartley suffered a left rear puncture. Despite this, Timo Bernhard, and then Mark Webber, showed consistent pace to eventually finish in sixth position.
Audi Sport Team Joest completed the race in fourth and fifth positions with the #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro eventually just finishing ahead of the #1 car when it pitted earlier in the final stint for a 'splash and dash' sixth pit stop.
In the LMP1-L class the #12 Rebellion Racing entry of Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche took a fifth victory of the 2014 season ahead of the similar #13 Rebellion R-One-Toyota.
- da www.fiawec.com
