Webber, Hartley, Bernhard WEC champions in frantic finale

Click here for full WEC Bahrain 6 Hours race results

Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard have claimed the FIA World Endurance Championship Drivers' crown in a hectic Bahrain 6 Hours, with the sister Porsche machine taking victory to seal a perfect 2015 for the German manufacturer.

The #17 Porsche 919 Hybrid stormed off from pole position but after half an hour of running hit mechanical trouble with throttle linkage issues and after over eight minutes in the pits returned to the action in last place.

But a spirited fightback saw Webber's car storm through the field into fifth and with team-mates Romain Dumas, Neel Jani and Marc Lieb taking its first victory of the campaign it demoted the title-challengers #7 Audi of Marcel Fassler, Andre Lotterer and Benoit Treluyer into second and unable to overhaul the 12-point deficit.

Webber and company claim their first WEC title to complete a dominant season for the German manufacturer who took a clean sweep of the manufacturers' and drivers' titles in both the LMP1 and LM GTE Pro categories.

The action commenced instantly at lights out when Andre Fassler attacked both Porsche cars in front but held their positions into turn one. As the running order began to settle, with the quicker #8 Audi cutting its way into second, disaster struck for the race-leading Porsche when Timo Bernhard appeared to suddenly lose power.

With only 30 minutes completed the #17 Porsche limped into the pits where mechanics instantly diagnosed a throttle linkage fault. After an agonizing 8m 43s in the pits to fix the problem the car lost five laps on its rivals to return to the action in last place.

With a mountain to climb, the two LMP1 Audi cars made the task as difficult as possible by taking the top two positions.

The drivers' championship equation continued to change as the #7 Audi took the lead from its sister car, but just before the halfway mark momentum swung back to Porsche while the #17 machine had been making strong progress up the classification.

The #8 Audi suffered a broken left-front brake disc and had to spend over 10 minutes in the garage to change the entire unit which dropped them behind #17 Porsche and into eighth.

Audi eased off its charge at the front to ensure the same problem didn't hit its championship fighter which gave the #18 Porsche the opportunity to take the lead between full course yellow periods.

The race took yet another twist with Webber's #17 Porsche needing an unexpected stop. It was discovered the 919 Hybrid was not harvesting energy through the front end, meaning they were running 300hp down.

Despite a noticeably edgy Webber being forced to nurse his car home he remained in fifth place and with the #8 Audi being given a three-minute stop/go penalty for an infringement, the all-important fifth place, points and the title was secured.

The #7 Audi squad believed the challenge of overhauling Porsche in Bahrain may be 'impossible' but despite not winning since round two in Spa missed out on the drivers title by just five points thanks to a rostrum finish in every race in 2015.

The troubles suffered by the title-challenges allowed the Toyota cars to jump up the order and give the retiring Alex Wurz a fitting send off as he guided the #2 Toyota TS040 Hybrid to the final podium spot with co-drivers Stephan Sarrazin and Mike Conway.

Defending WEC champions of Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi along with Kazuki Nakajima narrowly missed the podium in fourth place ahead of title winners Porsche.

In the LMP1 privateer class the #13 Rebellion-AER R-One of Alexandre Imperatori, Dominik Kraihamer and Matheo Tuscher claimed top spot in Bahrain to secure second place in the 2015 championship standings.

G-Drive's Sam Bird, Julien Canal and Roman Rosinov took the LMP2 Drivers' honours in Bahrain after a season-long battle with the KCMG squad, but eventually claimed the win by 25 seconds.

Richard Lietz became the sole winner of the GT world title by scrambling home to fifth place with Michael Christensen in the Porsche Team Manthey, while the German marque also claimed manufacturer honours thanks to Patrick Pilet and Frederic Makowiecki's victory in the sister car.

Finally, SMP Ferrari's Andrea Bertolini, Viktor Shaitar and Aleksey Basov claimed the GTE AM title by finishing fifth as the Aston Martin Vantage GTE of Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana and Mathias Lauda took a third win of the year.