page_title: 2015 6 Hours of Silverstone
hierarchical_section_title: 2015 6 Hours of Silverstone
context_page_description: The 2015 6 Hours of Silverstone was an endurance sports car racing event held for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars at the Silverstone Circuit near Silverstone, Northamptonshire, England on 10–12 April 2015 before a crowd of 45,000 spectators. The event served as the opening round of the 2015 World Endurance Championship; it was fourth running of the event as part of the championship.
  The No. 17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber qualified in pole position by setting the fastest lap in class. They maintained the lead for the opening 80 minutes until they suffered a terminal rear drivetrain failure. This allowed the sister No. 18 car driven by Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas to take over first position. Thereafter, the crew of the No. 18 Porsche battled the No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer for the lead throughout much of the event. This led to multiple overtakes by the No. 7 team that were repelled soon after by the No. 18 Porsche team. It had the advantage of being faster in a straight line, but the Audi was better in the track's corners. Although the No.
context_section_description: The 2015 6 Hours of Silverstone was an endurance sports car racing event held for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars at the Silverstone Circuit near Silverstone, Northamptonshire, England on 10–12 April 2015 before a crowd of 45,000 spectators. The event served as the opening round of the 2015 World Endurance Championship; it was fourth running of the event as part of the championship.
  The No. 17 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber qualified in pole position by setting the fastest lap in class. They maintained the lead for the opening 80 minutes until they suffered a terminal rear drivetrain failure. This allowed the sister No. 18 car driven by Marc Lieb, Neel Jani and Romain Dumas to take over first position. Thereafter, the crew of the No. 18 Porsche battled the No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro of André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer for the lead throughout much of the event. This led to multiple overtakes by the No. 7 team that were repelled soon after by the No. 18 Porsche team. It had the advantage of being faster in a straight line, but the Audi was better in the track's corners. Although the No. 7 Audi served a ten-second stop-and-go penalty for a track limits transgression in the final fourteen minutes of the event, it eventually got ahead as it was on a different strategy to the No. 18 Porsche. The car maintained the lead for the rest of the race to clinch the ninth overall career victory for Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer in a record-breaking race distance of 201 laps. Lieb, Dumas and Jani finished second and the No. 1 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Anthony Davidson was third.
  The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category was won by the No. 26 G-Drive Racing Ligier JS P2 of Roman Rusinov, Julien Canal and Sam Bird. It took the lead from the fast-starting KCMG Oreca 05 of Nick Tandy, Matthew Howson and Richard Bradley on lap six and held it for the majority of the race to clinch the class victory with a one-lap advantage over the sister No. 28 car of Gustavo Yacamán, Ricardo González and Pipo Derani which started from pole position. The No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia GTE of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander passed their teammates James Calado and Davide Rigon in the sister No. 71 entry after a battle during the fourth hour of the race to win the Le Mans Grand Touring Professional (LMGTE Pro) class. The car that came second was the No. 91 Porsche Team Manthey 911 RSR of Richard Lietz and Michael Christensen. The Le Mans Grand Touring Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Mathias Lauda in the No. 98 Aston Martin Racing V8 Vantage GTE with a 13.712 second advantage over the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari of Rui Águas, Emmanuel Collard and François Perrodo.
  The consequence of the final results gave Lotterer, Fässler and Tréluyer an early lead in the Drivers' Championship with 25 points, seven ahead of their nearest rivals Lieb, Jani and Dumas and a further three in front of Buemi, Nakajima and Davidson in third. Their teammates Mike Conway, Stéphane Sarrazin and Alexander Wurz were fourth on twelve points, and Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis rounded out the top five with ten points. Audi took the early lead of the Manufacturers' Championship with 35 points. They were seven points ahead of their nearest rivals Toyota in second; the third-placed manufacturer Porsche had scored 19 points with seven rounds left in the season.
caption: The Silverstone Circuit