The three-time winners at the 24 Hours of Le Mans faced a major challenge heading into the 6 Hours of Bahrain if they wanted to win: to claim for the No. 7 Audi R18 e-tron the top step on the podium. Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer, despite fighting tooth and nail, had to settle for second place behind the No. 18 Porsche 919 Hybrid.

Having endured technical problems since the beginning of the season, Romain Dumas - winner at Le Mans in 2010 - Neel Jani and Marc Lieb can now revel in victory, their teammates, Timo Bernhard, winner at the 24 Hours in 2010, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber securing a world title in the presence of the CEO of Groupe VW, Matthias Müller, despite an uncooperative accelerator as of the first hour of the race. A World Champion title finally belongs to the Australian driver after never clinching one in F1.

After its one-two at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, Porsche snatched the two World Endurance Champion titles after the second year of the 919 Hybrid's program even though the German manufacturer had announced when it returned to endurance it was aiming for a win sometime in year three. The podium at the 6 Hours of Bahrain reflects the season with Porsche on the top step, followed by Audi and Toyota.

Indeed, for his very last race as a professional driver, Alexander Wurz claimed the third step on the podium with Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin, their teammates Sébastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson, former World Endurance Champions, and Kazuki Nakajima finishing in fourth place for the Toyota TS040 Hybrid's last race, the Japanese manufacturer developing a new car, with a turbo engine, for 2016.

Following a suspension problem, the second Audi of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis failed to play a part in the battle for victory and finished 11 laps behind the winners, two laps behind the new world champions, who suffered technical damage. Technical problems also plagued private LM P1 teams Rebellion Racing and Team ByKOLLES, knowing the No. 12 R-One and its drivers, Mathias Beche and Nicolas Prost, had already scored the Teams and Drivers trophies prior to the last race of the season.

This was not the case in LM P2 even though G-Drive Racing had a 16-point lead on the KCMG outfit going into the 6 Hours of Bahrain. The Russian team still managed to clinch with gusto the win ahead of its rival after an intense duel between Sam Bird and Richard Bradley. The victory in LM P2 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the presence of Nick Tandy, himself an overall winner at Le Mans, were not enough for KCMG's Oreca 05 to grab the Teams and Drivers trophies from G-Drive Racing which had no retirements and placed two of its cars on the podium at Bahrain. On the other hand, Alpine was unable to take advantage of its pole position clinched yesterday, finishing in fourth place.

AF Corse and the winners of the 2014 GT Drivers Endurance Cup endured more or less the same fate. Having started from the pole, Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander had to give up the win to the No. 92 Porsche of Patrick Pilet and Frédéric Makowiecki, leaving the Drivers Cup to Richard Lietz, fifth in the other 911 for Porsche Team Manthey, and the Constructors Cup to Porsche though Ferrari had always won since the (re)birth of the World Endurance Championship (WEC).

Cécile Bonardel / ACO - Translation by Nikki Ehrhardt / ACO

PHOTO: SAKHIR (BAHRAIN), BAHRAIN INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT, FIA WEC, 6 HOURS OF BAHRAIN, SATURDAY NOVEMBER 21 2015, RACE.