The championship-leading Porsche has claimed the final pole position of the season for the Bahrain 6 Hours to take a clean sweep of poles in 2015 and move drivers Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber one step closer to the title.

Webber, meanwhile, limped his 919 Hybrid home with hybrid issues, but enough to give the Australian his first drivers’ championship of any kind, alongside co-drivers Hartley and Bernhard. who also pick up their first WEC crown.

In all eight rounds of the FIA World Endurance Championship no auto other than a Porsche 919 Hybrid has made it onto the front row.

The Australian, who left Formula One at the end of 2013 after Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel had won a fourth successive championship, took the title after his number 17 Porsche finished fifth in the Six Hours of Bahrain.

Any chance of the victory the Audi drivers needed to take the title finally disappeared in the penultimate hour when Lotterer retook the wheel and had to come straight back to the pits with a wheel nut problem.

Webber said: “That shows the fighting quality of the team”.

Porsche team-mates Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb took the race victory to deny the Audi drivers.

Fellow ex-F1 driver Alexander Wurz marked his final race with a podium finish with Toyota competing alongside Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin. Sam Bird overtook Nick Tandy’s KCMG ORECA in the closing stages to confirm a fourth win of the season.

The Aston Martin Vantage V8 of Pedro Lamy, Paul Dalla Lana and Mathias Lauda led the way in GTE Am.