Toyota takes WEC Shanghai 1-2 as rain, red flags dominate

Toyota Gazoo Racing extended its lead in the FIA World Endurance Championship by taking a one-two finish in Sunday's 6 Hours of Shanghai as wet weather dominated proceedings at the Shanghai International Circuit.

In a race featuring 11 Safety Car periods and two red flag stoppages, the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid crew of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez managed to clinch their second straight victory from pole position, leading home Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima in the sister #8 entry.

Only 10 green flag laps were managed in the first three hours of the race due to the wet weather, but conditions improved to allow for full points to be awarded, with the race-winning car completing 113 laps in total.

Conway came under late pressure from Nakajima as heavy rain returned in the final 20 minutes of the race and a late Safety Car was deployed, but he managed to hold on for a second straight victory following success at Fuji last month.

The result sees Conway, Lopez and Kobayashi cut the gap to the rival Toyota trio in the drivers' standings down to five points ahead of the championship's winter break.

2009 Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button scored his first WEC podium as SMP Racing took third place with its #11 BR Engineering BR1 car. Button partnered with Vitaly Petrov and Mikhail Aleshin to beat the #1 Rebellion Racing entry by 16 seconds, securing the team's second podium of the season.

Aston Martin Racing took a maiden class victory with its new Vantage GTE car in GTE-Pro as Marco Sørensen and Nicki Thiim saw off a late charge from Porsche to claim the win in the #95 car. The duo finished ahead of all of the LMP2 runners, who were led by class winners Ho-Pin Tung, Gabriel Aubry and Stephane Richelmi in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson.

One day after losing all its points scored so far this season, Dempsey-Proton Racing took class victory in GTE-Am with the #77 Porsche 911 RSR shared by Matt Campbell, Julian Andlauer and Christian Ried, with the team's #88 car finishing P3. They were split by the championship-leading Team Project 1 #56 Porsche in second place.

The 2018-19 WEC super season will resume on March 15 at Sebring.