Fernando Alonso has secured his first World Endurance (WEC) race win at the 6 hours of Spa for Toyota. Along with Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima, the Toyota #8 TS050 took the top step of podium ahead of the #7 Toyota for a 1, 2 finish.
After being a lap down, the #7 recovered to run within a second of Alonso in a spirited drive by Mike Conway but he began losing some ground as Alonso pulled out a gap and took the win.
There were a lot of variables involved but regardless, Fernando Alonso is something special and it’s terrific to watch him compete and win for a change. It’s is his first race win since the 2013 Spanish Grand Prix if you can believe that.
laps – LMP1
1. #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050 Hybrid (Alonso/Buemi/Nakajima) 163
2. #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050 Hybrid (Conway/Kobayashi/Lopez) + 1.444s
3. #1 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 Gibson (Jani/Lotterer/Senna) + 2 laps
4. #3 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R13 Gibson (Beche/Laurent/Menezes) + 2 laps
5. #4 ByKolles Racing Team ENSO CLM P1/01 Nismo (Webb/Kraihamer/Dillmann) + 5 laps
6. #11 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 AER (Aleshin/Petrov) + 5 laps
LMP2
7. #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Rusinov/Vergne/Pizzitola) + 7 laps –
8. #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Tung/Aubry/Richelmi) + 7 laps
9. #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut Alpine A470 Gibson (Lapierre/Negrao/Thiriet) + 7 laps
10. #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Jaafar/Tan/Jeffri) + 8 laps
11. #28 TDS Racing Oreca 07 Gibson (Perrodo/Vaxiviere/Duval) + 8 laps
12. #31 DragonSpeed Oreca 07 Gibson (Gonzalez/Maldonado/Berthon) + 8 laps
13. #50 Larbre Competition Ligier JSP217 Gibson (Creed/Ricci/Canal) + 11 laps
laps – GTE-Pro
14. #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK Ford GT (Mücke/Pla/Johnson) + 15
15. #92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR (Christensen/Estre) + 15 laps
16. #71 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo (Rigon/Bird) + 16 laps
17. #91 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR (Lietz/Bruni) + 16 laps
18. #82 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE (Blomqvist/Felix da Costa) + 17 laps
19. #97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR (Lynn/Martin/Adam) + 17 laps
20. #95 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR (Sørensen/Thiim/Turner) + 17 laps
21. #81 BMW Team MTEK BMW M8 GTE (Tomczyk/Catsburg) + 18 laps
19 laps – GTE-Am
22. #98 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage (Dalla Lana/Lamy/Lauda) +
23. #90 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage (Yoluc/Hankey/Eastwood) + 19 laps
24. #61 Clearwater Racing Ferrari 488 GTE (Mok/Sawa/Griffin) + 20 laps
25. #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Ried/Andlauer/Campbell) + 21 laps
26. #70 MR Racing Ferrari 488 GTE (Ishikawa/Beretta/Cheever) + 21 laps
27. #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Al Qubaisi/Roda/Cairoli) + 22 laps
28. #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo (Pier Guidi/Calado) + 24 laps
29. #29 Racing Team Nederland Dallara P217 Gibson (Van Eerd/Van der Garde/Lammers) + 24 laps
30. #86 Gulf Racing Porsche 911 RSR (Wainwright/Barker/Davison) + 26 laps
31. #54 Spirit of Race Ferrari 488 GTE (Flohr/Castellacci/Fisichella) + 27 laps
32. #56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR (Bergmeister/Lindsey/Perfetti) + 32 laps
DNF
Ret. #17 SMP Racing BR Engineering BR1 AER (Sarrazin/Orudzhev/Isaakyan) 132 laps
Ret. #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Racing Team UK Ford GT (Priaulx/Tincknell/Kanaan) 26 laps
Go Alonso! Step one on the way to Le Mans.
The list of the drivers competing in the WEC contains some pretty impressive names, including Pastor ‘nothing left to prove in F1’ Maldonado.
Button is also set to join from Le Mans with SMP Racing’s BR1 LMP1.