The 2016 6 Hours of Nürburgring (formally the WEC 6 Hours of Nürburgring) was a six-hour endurance sports car racing event held for Le Mans Prototype and Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance cars at the Nürburgring, Nürburg, Germany on 24 July 2016. The Nürburgring round served as the fourth race of the 2016 FIA World Endurance Championship, and was the second running of the event as part of the championship. A total of 58,000 people spectated the event.
The No. 7 Audi driven by André Lotterer and Marcel Fässler won the pole position by posting the fastest lap in qualifying and Fässler maintained the car's advantage throughout the race's early phase withstanding pressure from Timo Bernhard's No. 1 Porsche. Brendon Hartley took over the lead when both Audi cars had slow pit stops and held it until Marc Lieb in the sister Porsche moved past him, but later lost his advantage because he made a pit stop for dive plane repairs after damaging it while lapping a slower car. Mark Webber held the first position until Neel Jani in the sister No. 2 Porsche drew closer to him and passed him. However Jani was handed a drive-through penalty, giving the lead back to Webber. Bernhard later relieved Webber of his driving duties and held the lead for the remainder of the race to secure the victory. Audi's No. 8 car of Loïc Duval, Lucas di Grassi and Oliver Jarvis finished second and their teammates Lotterer and Fässler took third.
The Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2) category was won by the Signatech Alpine of Gustavo Menezes, Nicolas Lapierre and Stéphane Richelmi with Ricardo González, Filipe Albuquerque and Bruno Senna in RGR Sport's No. 36 in second. Gianmaria Bruni and James Calado's No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari took the victory in the Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Professional (LMGTE Pro) class with Sam Bird and Davide Rigon in the sister No. 71 car second. Bruni took the class lead from Nicki Thiim in the No. 95 Aston Martin Racing car in the race's late period and held on to take his and Calado's first win of the season. The Le Mans Grand Touring Endurance Amateur (LMGTE Am) category was won by Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana after they led the final 48 laps of the race to secure their second victory of the season, ahead of the No. 83 AF Corse of François Perrodo, Emmanuel Collard and Rui Águas.
The result meant Lieb, Jani and Romain Dumas maintained their Drivers' Championship lead with 106 points, 33 ahead of second-place finishers Duval, di Grassi and Jarvis, and a further three in front of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi. Lotterer and Fässler remained in fourth place and Dominik Kraihamer, Alexandre Imperatori and Mathéo Tuscher rounded out the top five. Porsche remained in the lead of the Manufacturers' Championship but their advantage over Audi was reduced by two points and Toyota maintained third position with five races left in the season.
Background
Entrants
A total of 33 cars were officially entered for the 6 Hours of Nürburgring, with the bulk of the entries in Le Mans Prototype 1 (LMP1) and Le Mans Prototype 2 (LMP2). The 2015 race winners, Porsche, returned to defend their title. Three manufacturers, Porsche, Toyota and Audi Sport Team Joest, were represented in LMP1 by two cars each. Rebellion Racing and ByKolles Racing were the two representatives of the LMP1 privateer teams. Audi driver Benoît Tréluyer was forced to miss the race because of a spinal column injury he sustained after falling off his mountain bike in a training exercise. Audi chose not to employ a replacement which meant the team's 7 car would be driven by his co-drivers Marcel Fässler and André Lotterer as a two-person entry. It was the first World Endurance Championship race Tréluyer missed since he joined the series in 2012. Mathias Beche returned to the sport full-time in the 2016 season, replacing Nelson Piquet Jr. who participated in the year's first three races in Rebellion Racing's No. 12 car.