Aston Martin Racing has secured a third consecutive GTE Am victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship, as the team’s #98 V8 Vantage GTE stormed to the chequered flag at the 6 Hours of Shanghai.
After securing pole position in yesterday’s qualifying session, the trio of Paul Dalla Lana (C), Pedro Lamy (P) and Mathias Lauda (A) performed yet another faultless display to take their fifth victory of the season.
Following a first corner incident, Lamy found himself pushed back to second after avoiding the melee. Despite the setback, the Portuguesa re-claimed his position, allowing him to focus on creating a convincing lead. From that point onwards, the crew never looked back as they stormed to victory with a final advantage of over one lap.
After the craziness of the first lap, my first stint was good and I felt that I had a strong pace. The Porsche that overtook me at turn one received a drive through, so I was able to take the lead back quickly and build a nice gap to hand over to Paul”.
Lauda added, “Today we had a really perfect day. From beginning to the end we had the better overall pace compared to our competitors and we’re enjoying a really deserved win tonight. It feels great to win five races in one year and even though we’re second in the championship, we don’t give up”.
The #95 V8 Vantage GTE of Nicki Thiim (DN) and Marco Sørensen (DN) continued to score vital points towards their championship campaign. With Sørensen also narrowly avoiding the first corner incident, the pair fought hard to claim fourth place. The result ensures that the pair extend their lead in the GTE Drivers championship and maintain their GTE Pro title lead, with all 2016 GT competitions to be decided at the final round in Bahrain.
Despite both the #95 and #98 entries making it through the start of the race safely, the incident at turn one proved to be costly for the #97 entry of Darren Turner (GB) and Richie Stanaway (NZ). After striking a spinning LMP2 in an unavoidable incident, the damage proved too extensive to return the car to the track in time to complete the required 70% race distance.
Aston Martin Racing returns for the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, which takes place in Bahrain on Saturday 19 November.