2014 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas
8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Sébastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Nicolas Lapierre won the pole position with the fastest two-lap average lap time and maintained its start-line advantage until a monsoon fell on the track and stopped the race for 77 minutes.
2 R18 e-tron quattro of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer and Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb in the No.
47 KCMG Oreca 03R of Richard Bradley, Matthew Howson and Tsugio Matsuda taking the team's first class victory in the World Endurance Championship, ahead of the No.
27 SMP Racing Oreca driven by Sergey Zlobin, Maurizio and Nicolas Minassian in second and the debuting Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD-ARX 03 of Ed Brown, Ryan Dalziel and Scott Sharp took third.
97 Aston Martin Vantage won the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class and the British marque also took the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category with Paul Dalla Lana, Pedro Lamy and Christoffer Nygaard in the No.
Three manufacturers were represented in LMP1, including a duo of cars entered by Audi Sport Team Joest, Toyota and Porsche.
[2] After spending the last three months recovering from a heavy crash during practice for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Loïc Duval returned to Audi Sport Team Joest after doctors granted him medical clearance.
[4] In the month before its debut, Lotus named Super GT competitor James Rossiter, experienced sports car driver Christophe Bouchut and Formula Three European Championship race winner Lucas Auer as the trio to pilot the No.
[6] Tsugio Matsuda returned from his four-month hiatus from prototype car racing and joined Matthew Howson and Richard Bradley in driving the No.
[1] Porsche Team Manthey changed their driver roster: Richard Lietz could not recover sufficiently from a fractured arm he sustained while practising at Virginia International Raceway.
[11] James Calado missed Le Mans because he suffered from two brain haemorrhages as a consequence of a heavy practice accident.
57 Ferrari 458 Italia for owner Tracy Krohn, his long-time teammate Niclas Jönsson and experienced racer Ben Collins.
[13] Matthieu Vaxivière returned to compete for Prospeed Competition after breaking his vertebrae in a Formula Renault 3.5 Series accident in Monaco which forced him to miss Le Mans.
[14][15] Enzo Potolicchio stopped driving for the rest of the season and his place in the 8 Star Motorsports Ferrari was taken by 24 Hours of Daytona class winner Jeff Segal.
[16] Nicki Thiim was absent because of a Porsche Carrera Cup Germany commitment at the Sachsenring and was substituted by Richie Stanaway.
An agreement was reached by circuit officials, the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO) and International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) to run the race on the Saturday.
[19] Before the race Toyota drivers Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Nicolas Lapierre led the Drivers' Championship with 80 points, 20 ahead of their nearest rivals André Lotterer, Marcel Fässler and Benoît Tréluyer of Audi Sport Team Joest and a further six in front of their two teammates Lucas di Grassi and Tom Kristensen.
The minimum weight of the LMP1 privateer cars was reduced to 800 kilograms (1,800 lb) from the Le Mans limit of 810 kilograms (1,790 lb) as the CLM P1/01 and Rebellion R-Ones received a four percent increase in maximum fuel flow rate and a fifteen percent break in fuel energy per lap to increase their performance.
In the LMGTE category the commission added an additional 20 kilograms (44 lb) of ballast to the Aston Martins to lower their performance.
[22] The second practice session was delayed for an hour because of an electrical thunderstorm that caused localised flooding around the circuit and it also prevented trackside marshals from taking up their posts due to local bylaws governing safety.
[23][24] Once the rain had abated enough to allow for cars to circulate the track, the session commenced and several drivers reported aquaplaning over the multiple heavy puddles that had formed on the circuit.
8 car in the garage before venturing onto the track with Davidson, who slid on a wet patch at turn 11 and aborted his first attempt.
14 Porsche whose two-lap average was 1.190 seconds slower because Jani's best lap was disallowed transgressing energy recovery system limits that dictated the maximum amount of fuel each car could use.
1 Audi completed the top ten after one of di Grassi's laps was deleted for violating energy recovery system limits because of a computer glitch.
51 Ferrari, took the squad's fourth LMGTE Pro pole position in a row with a two-lap average effort of 2 minutes and 6.456 seconds,[34][30] in a rain-affected session that made portions of the track dump.
[31] Vaxivière was chosen to go a long stint and Emmanuel Collard drove on a drier track,[34] enabling the duo to claim their first LMGTE Am pole position in the No.
[40] Although drivers were circumspect en route to having wet-weather tyres installed in the pit lane,[40] five of the six LMP1-H cars and several other vehicles from the other three categories aquaplaned off the track.
[38] Race officials allowed open-cockpit vehicles to be covered, and teams were permitted to demist their cars windscreens for improved visibility.
[39] Racing resumed 77 minutes later in safety car conditions and in fading light as some teams chose to make tyre changes.
[36] KCMG won a race-long battle between Extreme Speed Motorsports, SMP Racing and G-Drive and took its first class victory in the World Endurance Championship with the No.
