Austin WEC: Storm and crashes interrupt race, cause red flag
The Austin round of the World Endurance Championship has been red-flagged after a heavy rain storm sent a series of cars off the track
The leading Toyota TS040 HYBRID driven by Nicolas Lapierre became beached in the gravel at Turn 12 at the end of the back straight and was then joined by two GTE Am class AF Corse Ferraris.
The catalyst for the race stoppage, which came after one hour and 35 minutes of the race, came when Porsche LMP1 driver Timo Bernhard went off at the same corner on his out-lap after changing to wet tyres and scythed between the stranded cars.
The race was led by Benoit Treluyer in the #2 Audi R18 e-tron quattro from the sister car in the hands of Tom Kristensen.
Mike Conway, who had also gone off, had just stopped in the pits for wet tyres was listed a lap down in third place for Toyota ahead of Neel Jani's Porsche 919 Hybrid.
The LMP2 class was led by Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Motorsports HPD ARX-03b after Roman Rusinov had gone off in the leading OAK/G-Drive Ligier-Nissan JSP2.
Darren Turner moved into the lead of GTE Pro in his Aston Martin Vantage GTE ahead of Toni Vilander's AF Corse Ferrari during the storm.
The race is due to resume behind the safety car at 7.25pm local time.
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