The 2015 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 28–30 August 2015. Nürburgring served as the fourth round of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship, and it marked the inaugural running of the event as part of the championship. A total of 62,000 people attended the race weekend.
The No. 18 Porsche of Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani qualified in pole position by recording the fastest lap in qualifying and maintained the lead until it was issued with multiple penalties relating to excessive fuel consumption at its first pit stop and the consequence of this allowed the sister Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber to move to the front of the field. The car kept the lead through the following sequence of pit stops and Webber drove the Porsche across the start/finish line at the end of the race to claim his, Bernhard and Hartley's first outright victories in the World Endurance Championship. Jani and later Lieb fended off the advances from the two rival Audis to secure second and the podium was completed by the No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer.
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category was won by the No. 47 KCMG Oreca 05 of Matthew Howson, Richard Bradley and Nick Tandy . The car held the lead in the class for the majority of the race to secure its second consecutive victory of the season and was followed by the No. 26 G-Drive Racing car of Roman Rusinov, Julien Canal and Sam Bird. Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen in the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR took the victory in the Le Mans Grand Tourer Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with the sister car driven by Patrick Pilet and Frédéric Makowiecki taking second despite the duo serving two penalties during the course of the race. The podium in the category was completed by the No. 71 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GTE of Davide Rigon and James Calado. The Le Mans Grand Tourer Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was led for the final half an hour by the No. 72 SMP Racing Ferrari of Viktor Shaytar, Aleskey Bakov and Andrea Bertolini who held it to clinch the class victory, ahead of the No. 98 Aston Martin V8 Vantage GTE of Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda.
The result of the race reduced Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer's Drivers' Championship by three points to the outright race winners Bernhard, Hartley and Webber who moved up three places to lie in second. Lieb, Dumas and Jani moved from fourth to third while Tandy dropped to fourth after finishing seventh in the overall classification. Earl Bamber and the absent Nico Hülkenberg rounded out the top five. Porsche increased its lead in the Manufacturers' Championship on 184 points, thirty-three ahead of Audi and a further 62 in front of Toyota with four rounds left in the season.
Background Entry list
A total of thirty-one 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). Three manufacturers, Porsche, Toyota and Audi Sport Team Joest, were represented in LMP1 by two cars each. Rebellion Racing and Team ByKolles were the two representatives of the privateer field. Three weeks prior, Nissan announced their decision to delay their return to the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) so they could address energy recovery system faults with their two GT-R LM Nismos and resume their testing programme in the United States.
LMP2 consisted of eight cars with 24 drivers. Starting at the Nürburgring, Strakka Racing switched from running a Dome S103 to a Gibson 015S for the rest of the season. This was so the team could use the Dome S103 for testing and developing in preparation for a planned entry to LMP1 in 2017. OAK Racing pulled their No. 35 Ligier JS P2 Nissan from the entry list for unspecified reasons. Zoël Amberg was withdrawn on medical grounds which were believed to be related from a crash he suffered at the Monaco GP2 Series round three months prior. Amberg's place in the 43 Team SARD Morand Morgan was taken by the International GT Open driver Archie Hamilton. After driving the No. 19 Porsche 919 Hybrid at Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans, Nick Tandy returned to KCMG for the first time since the season-opening round at Silverstone.
The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) field consisted of three manufacturers (Aston Martin, Ferrari and Porsche), while the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) entrants were six teams: Aston Martin Racing, AF Corse, Larbre Compétition, Dempsey-Racing Proton, Porsche Team Manthley, and SMP Racing. British GT racer Jonny Adam made his first appearance in the season in the No. 97 Aston Martin Vantage GTE and he was paired with regular drivers Darren Turner and Stefan Mücke. Le Mans outright winner and United SportsCar Championship competitor Earl Bamber returned to the World Endurance Championship to drive the No. 88 Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR, replacing Klaus Bachler, who had an ADAC GT Masters commitment at the Sachsenring. After fracturing two vertebrae in a heavy accident at Le Mans, Roald Goethe, the co-driver of the No. 96 Aston Martin, was declared fit to compete at the Nürburgring.
Preview
The 6 Hours of Nürburgring was confirmed as part of the FIA World Endurance Championship's 2015 schedule in an FIA World Motor Sport Council meeting in Doha on 3 December 2014. It was the fourth of eight scheduled endurance sports car races of the 2015 FIA World Endurance Championship, and the inaugural running of the race as part of the championship. It was held on 30 August 2015 at the Nürburgring GP-Strecke circuit in Nürburg, Germany following two days of practice and qualifying. The race was the first world sports car championship round to be held at the circuit since the 1991 430 km of Nürburgring, and took place on a modified version of the 16-turn layout which lacked the Veedol chicane.
Before the race Audi Sport Team Joest drivers André Lotterer, Benoît Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler led the Drivers' Championship with 80 points, twenty ahead of nearest rival Tandy in second place, and a further two in front of Bamber and the non-competing Nico Hülkenberg. Marc Lieb, Romain Dumas and Neel Jani were fourth on 57 points and Timo Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley followed in fifth position on 53 points. Porsche led the Manufacturers' Championship with 140 points, sixteen points ahead of their rival Audi in second place. The third-placed manufacturer Toyota had scored 71 points and Nissan rounded out the top four but had yet to accumulate any points. Audi dominated the season's opening two rounds and Porsche won the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The trio of Lieb, Dumas and Jani secured two consecutive second-place finishes and their teammates Bernhard, Webber and Hartley placed second at Le Mans.
After Le Mans, the FIA Endurance Committee altered the balance of performance in the GTE categories, reducing the size of the air restrictor on the air intake of the Aston Martin Vantage engines by and lowering the weight of the Porsche 911 RSRs in LMGTE Pro by and was removed from the LMGTE Am version of the car. Similarly, the Chevrolet Corvette C7.R in both GTE classes had its fuel capacity increased by and were mandated to install a larger refuelling restrictor. The Ferrari 458 Italia GTEs in LMGTE Am had a weight increase of . In the LMP1 Equivalence of Technology alterations, the Porsche 919 Hybrid and Toyota TS040 Hybrid had their petrol energy lowered by 2.2% and their maximum petrol fuel load by 1.6%. In contrast, the diesel energy of the Audi R18 e-tron quattro was increased by 0.44% and its maximum diesel flow was increased by 0.63%. The LMP1 fuel capacity of petrol-powered engines was lowered from to . Similarly, Audi's diesel-powered engine had its fuel capacity reduced from to .
Practice
There were three practice sessions—one 90-minute session each on Friday afternoon and early evening and a one-hour session on Saturday morning—preceding Sunday's race. The first practice session began on a damp track after some rain had fallen shortly before it started and this made drivers wary on their first attempts. Lap times lowered when the rain let up. The No. 7 Audi of Lotterer led the session in its latter half with the fastest lap time at 1:39.201, 0.076 seconds faster than any other car on the track. His closest challenger was Jani in the No. 18 Porsche and Loïc Duval's No. 8 Audi followed in third place. Bernhard was fourth in the other Porsche and the quickest Toyota came fifth after a lap from Stéphane Sarrazin. LMP2 was led by Gustavo Yacamán's No. 28 G-Drive Racing car with a lap of 1:46.631 set late in practice and was a second clear from teammate Sam Bird. Gianmaria Bruni's No. 51 Ferrari was quickest in LMGTE Pro while the No. 83 car of Rui Águas helped the team to the top of the time sheets in LMGTE Am. While the session passed relatively peacefully, several cars slid off on the slippery tarmac and the session was stopped when Simon Trummer spun the No. 4 ByKolles CLM P1/01 into the final turn's gravel trap.
The track was dry for the second practice session which had Tréluyer record the fastest time of the day late at 1:37.862 despite going into the turn one gravel trap. Webber finished with the second-quickest time; his teammate Jani was third and Duval placed fourth. Toyota were still off the pace with their fastest lap coming from driver Mike Conway who was three seconds adrift in fifth position. Lucas di Grassi removed the rear wing of the No. 8 Audi in an impact with the final turn tyre wall after hitting the inside kerb. Bird was the early pace setter in LMP2 and later improved on his fastest time to finish at the top of the time sheets with a lap of 1:46.299 that put him almost a second and a half clear of teammate Pipo Derani. LMGTE Pro was led by Richie Stanaway's No. 99 Aston Martin and the SMP Racing Ferrari of Viktor Shaytar was fastest in LMGTE Am with a benchmark lap.
The third (and final) practice session started with Dumas being the early pace setter and later improved on his effort. His co-driver Lieb then went faster with a lap of 1:36.036 and remained at the top of the time sheets until the end of the session. His teammate Webber followed six-tenths of a second behind in second and the quickest Audi was the No. 8 car of di Grassi in third. Fässler was fourth-fastest despite spinning at slow speed at turn two and Sébastien Buemi rounded out the top five. Dumas made contact with the left-rear section of François Perrodo's car at turn two which led to a punctured tyre; both drivers were forced to the pit lane for repairs. Derani was the early pace setter in LMP2 but Jonny Kane set the fastest class time of the weekend so far at 1:45.270, and Tandy was almost one-tenth of a second behind in second. Aston Martin and Porsche battled for the fastest time in LMGTE Pro until Bruni topped the time sheets and Bamber set an early benchmark which put him fastest in LMGTE Am. Paul Dalla Lana locked his tyres and his tyre failed but was recovered for transportation back to the pit lane.
Qualifying