Porsche drivers Timo Bernhard, Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley extended their World Endurance Championship points lead with victory at the Circuit of the Americas.
A team orders decision from Porsche management saw Bamber move ahead of Nick Tandy in the sister 919 Hybrid during the final 10 minutes, sealing the fourth consecutive win for the #2 crew.
Bamber crossed the line 0.276 seconds ahead of Tandy, who led much of the six-hour contest with team-mates Andre Lotterer and Neel Jani.
The #1 Porsche made the best start with Jani settling into a 10 second lead from pole, while Bernhard fell behind the pair of much-improved Toyota TS050 Hybrids.
A fourth hour safety car – called to repair the turn 12 barriers after Michael Wainwright crashed his GT Porsche – saw the leading trio's advantage slashed to less than a second from Mike Conway in the #7 Toyota, although the gap stretched back out again when Porsche opted to forgo tyres at its next pit stop.
That strategy elevated the #2 car back into second, while more crucially the #1 machine maintained the gap to the Toyotas despite running an older set of Michelins.
The Porsches superficially switched places during the fifth hour, but the #1 reinstated itself at the head of the field during the final visit to the pits with half an hour remaining.
Toyota, meanwhile, saw both its cars stay within touch of the Porsches as the Japanese manufacturer focused on a low-drag setup for its high-downforce aero kit.
Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and stand-in Stephane Sarrazin finished 21 seconds shy of the winner, while the sister car of Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez came through a further 24 seconds back.
The result boosts Bernhard, Bamber and Hartley's championship advantage to 51 points over Buemi and Nakajima with three rounds left in the season.
In LMP2, Signatech Alpine survived a late pit scare to beat the pair of Vaillante Rebellion ORECAS.
Gustavo Menezes, Andre Negrao and Nicolas Lapierre controlled much of the contest in their Alpine A470, but a late stewards' call to bring the car into the pits to replace a faulty tail light threatened to hand victory to Nelson Piquet Jr, David Heinemeier Hansson and Mathias Beche.
However, the Signatech squad had built enough of a lead during the six hours to keep Menezes out in front, with the American crossing the line 30 seconds ahead of Piquet Jr.
Bruno Senna, Julien Canal and Nicolas Prost completed the podium in the second Rebellion, reducing the gap to championship leaders Thomas Laurent, Oliver Jarvis and Ho-Pin Tung to 20 points.
Ferrari survives late GTE drama
AF Corse drivers Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado came through to win a thrilling GTE-Pro class tussle in their Ferrari.
The pair were on course to take a dominant victory when Pier Guidi picked up a front-left puncture with less than 10 minutes to go, but like the Signatech squad the Italian had enough of a lead to come out ahead of Michael Christensen in the chasing Porsche 911 RSR.
After a poor qualifying session, Christensen and Kevin Estre made strides through the field until Estre overtook Davide Rigon's Ferrari for the lead in the fourth hour.
When Rigon started struggling with his tyres, Calado was brought through to pick up the chase, with the Briton finding a way past Estre on the inside at turn two.
Ferrari's pit strategy later elevated the Davide Rigon/Sam Bird car ahead of the Porsche, but Christensen soon closed back in before passing Bird for second while Pier Guidi ran at the front.
Aston Martin Racing claimed fourth and fifth, while the sister Porsche finished sixth after picking up a drive through for violating track limits.
Aston's GTE-Am squad fared better in the secondary GT category, as Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana and Mathias Lauda chalked up their first win since the 6 Hours of Spa in May.
The trio recovered from an early spin for Dalla Lana to beat the Clearwater Racing Ferrari 488 of Matt Griffin/Keita Sawa/Mok Wen Sung by 50 seconds.






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