The WEC season opener in Qatar was a disappointment for Porsche: the best 963 came in tenth – What problems the world champions had to contend with
As the reigning drivers’ world champions in the World Endurance Championship (WEC), Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor should have been the ones to beat at the season opener in Qatar (race report) – but instead, Porsche played no role in the fight for victory. A disappointment for the title defenders!
Not a single Porsche 963 made it into the Hyperpole in qualifying. And the factory team also had no chance in the race. An unfortunate start to the race made the situation even worse: Laurens Vanthoor was hit from behind by a competitor in the dense starting fray.
This made it necessary to change the rear wing prematurely and even threw the trio off the leading lap after an unfortunate virtual safety car. Together with Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell, the Belgian only managed to finish in eleventh place in the end.
“A disappointing result,” admits the world champion. ‘Last year we won here in Doha, now we are in eleventh place. To be honest, the Porsche was driving quite well, but it couldn’t go any faster. There’s not much more to say about it.’
51 (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi), which set a lap time of 1:41.259 minutes.
Problem with tire and brake wear?
The second works Porsche, 5 (Andlauer/Christensen/Jaminet), also had a tough time. The fastest lap in 1:42.610 minutes was eight-tenths of a second faster than its sister car, but also significantly slower than Ferrari.
“At times, our Porsche felt very good, but in the end I had to fight with the tire and brake wear as well as the energy balance,” Michael Christensen explained, commenting on tenth place. ”I was still aiming for ninth place, but then we fell out of the performance window and had no chance.”
Even aside from the pure pace, Porsche was dogged by bad luck. A damaged tire forced starting driver Julien Andlauer to make an unscheduled pit stop after just 30 minutes – a setback that catapulted the team to the back of the hypercar field.
A safety car period brought temporary hope, because the trio worked its way up to fifth place thanks to a clever refueling stop. But another puncture and a defective damper element on the rear axle dashed all hopes of a top result.
Porsche: “The situation has changed”
In the end, Andlauer, Christensen and Matthieu Jaminet only managed tenth place and two championship points. “A very exhausting, sometimes really difficult race for me,” Christensen sums up.
“On the track, it was pretty rough with the numerous competitors – I’ve rarely had contact with so many other cars in such a short time,” said the Dane, summing up his turbulent race. ”I didn’t want that, but sometimes it happens.”
“We knew from the start that we were in for a difficult race,” confirms Urs Kuratle, Head of LMDh Works Motorsport. ‘Last year we were here in Doha with three Porsche 963s on the podium, but the situation has changed.’
With that, Kuratle also alludes to the BoP. Porsche and Toyota weighed in up to 30 kilograms more than the rest of the hypercars. “We didn’t make no mistakes today, but the team and drivers did a good job. Still, the result is disappointing.”
“We only scored two points today – but it feels like we actually deserved more,” adds Jonathan Diuguid, managing director at Porsche Penske. ‘Our two Porsches had a long day. We will improve a few things and work on our performance for the second race of the season in Imola.’
