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Austin WEC: Rebellion entry comfortably beats handicapped Toyotas

Rebellion took a dominant second victory of the World Endurance Championship season at Austin, easily beating Toyota's more severely handicapped cars

Gustavo Menezes, Bruno Senna and Norman Nato had a trouble-free run in the polesitting #1 Rebellion R-13, taking advantage of being slowed only by 0.55 seconds a lap under the system of LMP1 success handicaps introduced for the 2019/20 season.

The more lightly penalised of the two Toyota TS050 HYBRIDS, the #8 car shared by Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley, was powerless to challenge the Rebellion, with Buemi dropping 23s back in the opening hour.

Hartley brought the car home 51s down on the Rebellion, which scored only its second outright, on-the-road WEC win following its first triumph last year in Shanghai.

Points leaders Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi took the final podium spot in the #7 Toyota which was slowed by 2.77s a lap, versus 2.21s for the sister #8 car. The trio were two laps down on the winning car.

Paul di Resta, Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson gave the United Autosports squad a second win in a row, backing up their first WEC victory in Bahrain.

It was a win that had seemed unlikely in the early stages when di Resta dropped down the order, prompting an early changeover to Hanson that put the team off-sequence.

But consistent pace from all three drivers steadily put the United ORECA back into contention, and by the time di Resta brought the car in for a splash-and-dash with 20 minutes to go the #22 car was 1m20s up on its nearest rival, the #37 Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA.

Ex-Formula 1 driver di Resta ultimately finished 24s ahead of the car shared by Will Stevens, Ho-Pin Tung and Gabriel Aubry, which was delayed early on when Stevens was punted into a spin by the Racing Team Nederland entry of Frits van Eerd.

JOTA Sport's #38 ORECA of Anthony Davidson, Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez finished third, while a late battle for fourth between Nicolas Lapierre's pole-winning Cool Racing entry and RTN's Nyck de Vries went the way of Lapierre.

The Signatech Alpine ORECA lost two laps with a brake failure in the second hour, ultimately finishing sixth in class, while the one-off DragonSpeed entry dropped to ninth and last in class with a brake problem with just 10 minutes remaining.

Aston Martin's championship-leading #95 crew of Nicki Thiim and Marco Sorensen secured their third victory of the season.

Thiim was able to establish a buffer in the opening stint, and resisted a late charge from the #92 Porsche of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre, which finished only 4s in arrears.

Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin ran second in the #97 Vantage for much of the race, but Martin dropped behind Estre in the penultimate hour before Lynn conceded a position to the #51 Ferrari of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the final half hour, finishing fourth.

The second Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz was in the mix for a podium finish as well before a battery problem caused the #91 car to stop on track with just over an hour to go, dropping the pair to seventh and last in class behind the solo Corvette C8.R.

Aston Martin took a double victory in the GTE ranks as the #90 TF Sport entry of Charlie Eastwood, Salih Yoluc and Jonathan Adam scored a third Am win in four races.

Result - 189 laps

Pos Class Driver Team Car Gap
1 LMP1 B.Senna, G.Menezes, N.Nato Rebellion Racing Rebellion/Gibson 6h01m37.705s
2 LMP1 S.Buemi, K.Nakajima, B.Hartley Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 51.524s
3 LMP1 M.Conway, K.Kobayashi, J.M.Lopez Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 2 Laps
4 LMP2 P.Hanson, F.Albuquerque, P.Di Resta United Autosports ORECA/Gibson 7 Laps
5 LMP2 H-Pin Tung, G.Aubry, W.Stevens Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA/Gibson 7 Laps
6 LMP2 R.Gonzalez, A.F.da Costa, A.Davidson JOTA ORECA/Gibson 8 Laps
7 LMP2 N.Lapierre, A.Borga, A.Coigny COOL Racing ORECA/Gibson 8 Laps
8 LMP2 F.van Eerd, G.van der Garde, N.de Vries Racing Team Nederland ORECA/Gibson 8 Laps
9 LMP2 T.Laurent, A.Negrao, P.Ragues Signatech Alpine Elf Alpine/Gibson 9 Laps
10 LMP2 M.Patterson, K.Yamashita, A.Fjordbach High Class Racing ORECA/Gibson 10 Laps
11 LMP2 R.Lacorte, A.Belicchi, G.Sernagiotto Cetilar Racing Dallara/Gibson 11 Laps
12 LMP2 H.Hedman, B.Hanley, C.Braun DragonSpeed ORECA/Gibson 12 Laps
13 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, N.Thiim Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 16 Laps
14 GTE Pro M.Christensen, K.Estre Porsche GT Team Porsche 17 Laps
15 GTE Pro J.Calado, A.P.Guidi AF Corse Ferrari 17 Laps
16 GTE Pro A.Lynn, M.Martin Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 17 Laps
17 GTE Pro D.Rigon, M.Molina AF Corse Ferrari 17 Laps
18 GTE Pro J.Magnussen, M.Rockenfeller Corvette Racing Chevrolet 19 Laps
19 GTE Am S.Yoluc, C.Eastwood, J.Adam TF Sport Aston Martin 19 Laps
20 GTE Am P.D.Lana, D.Turner, R.Gunn Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 19 Laps
21 GTE Pro G.Bruni, R.Lietz Porsche GT Team Porsche 19 Laps
22 GTE Am E.Perfetti, L.Horr, M.Cairoli Team Project 1 Porsche 19 Laps
23 GTE Am F.Perrodo, E.Collard, N.Nielsen AF Corse Ferrari 19 Laps
24 GTE Am C.Ried, R.Pera, M.Campbell Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 20 Laps
25 GTE Am M.Wainwright, A.Watson, B.Barker Gulf Racing Porsche 20 Laps
26 GTE Am T.Flohr, F.Castellacci, G.Fisichella AF Corse Ferrari 21 Laps
27 GTE Am B.Grimes, J.Mowlem, C.Hollings Red River Sport Ferrari 21 Laps
28 GTE Am B.Curtis, A.De Leener, T.Preining Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 21 Laps
29 GTE Am M.Ishikawa, O.Beretta, K.Cozzolino MR Racing Ferrari 21 Laps
30 GTE Am B.Keating, F.Fraga, J.Bleekemolen Team Project 1 Porsche 29 Laps


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