Mark Webber leads Porsche 1-2 in Germany

Mark Webber has broken through for his first World Endurance Championship win by landing the Nurburgring 6 Hour race.

Webber guided the the #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid to a one-lap win over the #18 machine in an emphatic display of power and precision.

Winning the pole, Neel Jani had led from the start but the #18 he shared with Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb suffered what were to prove crippling electronic gremlins.

An engine sensor linked to the fuel allowed per lap malfunctioned causing the #18 to receive three penalties along the way before the issue was resolved.

It meant that Webber, Timo Bernhard and Kiwi Brendon Hartley had a clear passage to crack their maiden victory in the championship and reaffirm Porsche as the new force in prototype racing.

Webber’s breakthrough came at the venue where he scored the first of nine F1 victories in 2009.

“Achieving the second one-two after Le Mans is great for our team,” Webber said.

“This is my first Porsche victory and, of course, it is a big day for Brendon, Timo and myself, and it is always a team effort.

“The two of them were awesome, we had no technical issues and took an important step by improving our performance on shorter tracks.

“Traffic was sometimes brutal today, but we made it.”

Audi’s #7 R18 e-tron quattro took the final podium spot for Andre Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler who hold their lead in the series after four rounds.

Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis finished fourth while Toyota’s best placed TS040 of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima was a distant fifth.

Le Mans winner Nick Tandy lead the Hong Kong-based KCMG Oreca 05 Nissan to a clear victory in LMP2.

Porsche claimed another quinella when Michael Christensen and Richard Lietz supplied Team Manthey with a well overdue win over the 911 RSR of Patrick Pilet and Fred Makowiecki in the GTE Pro Class.

Russia’s SMP Racing took honours in GTE Am with Victor Shaytar, Aleksey Basov and Andrea Bertolini living up to the squad’s Le Mans form.

Round 5 of the championship is scheduled for the Circuit of the Americas in Texas on September 19.

Full results below