What's happening this week in Shanghai
The 6 Hours of Shanghai, the eighth and final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, will take place on Sunday, 28th October. For the teams, however, it will already have been a full and busy week as the cars were shipped directly from Japan to Shanghai and all will have needed to be re-prepared before the race. Taking place at the impressively large 5.45 kilometre track, the 6-hour race will determine the final outcome of the FIA World Endurance Championship for drivers.
Administrative checks for the teams began from 0900 hours on Thursday (all timings are local) and from 1300 hours for the drivers, whilst the cars started moving through Technical Scrutineering from 0930 hours. This is when the technical validity of the cars and drivers’ equipment is checked to make sure they are within the stated regulations.
Track action will start on Friday, 26th October at 1035 hours for a 90-minute free practice session, but not before drivers and team managers’ briefings at 0915 hours and 0930 hours respectively. Just as in Fuji, these briefings are very important as many drivers and teams haven’t competed at the track before. Also taking place for the first time will be practice sessions for the Lamborghini and Audi R8 LMS Cup races, as well as two 30-minute familiarisation periods for the Celebrity races.
FIA WEC competitors will be back on track at 1530 hours for a second free practice session of one and a half hours before catching up on some sleep ahead of the third and final free practice which will run for one hour on Saturday morning, 27th October, from 0915-1015 hours.
While all the classes are brought together during free practice, this isn’t the case for qualifying. The LMGTE Pro and Am class cars will lead the way for the sessions which determine the starting positions for everyone in Sunday’s race, and the first 20-minute qualifying is from 1325-1345 hours, while the LMP1 and LMP2 cars will follow on from 1355-1415 hours.
The Celebrity Race will run immediately after qualifying, from 1435-1535 hours, this following the Lamborghini and Audi R8 LMS Cup support events which are taking place between the WEC’s third free practice session and qualifying earlier in the day.
Sunday will be the big day for all competitors with warm up from 0800-0820 hours, followed by second Audi R8 LMS Cup race and then all the FIA WEC pre-grid activities. Spectators will be able to participate in a pit-walk from 0915-0955 hours, whilst the drivers will be available for photos and autographs from 0915-0955 hours.
Preparation time for the race follows, and the drivers will be on the grid for the 6 Hours of Shanghai which begins at 1100 hours. It’s a race which should be just as exciting as the 6 Hours of Fuji with titles in two of the four classes still to be decided.
Fiona Miller
Photo: SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL CIRCUIT (SHANGHAI, CHINA), 6 HOURS OF SHANGHAI, WEDNESDAY, 24TH OCTOBER.
