Timo Bernhard is back in the World Endurance Championship: The Le Mans winner is supporting the Porsche Penske works team this year “with a fresh view from the outside”
Timo Bernhard, two-time Le Mans winner and World Endurance Champion in 2015 and 2017, is back in the World Endurance Championship (WEC)! Not in the race cockpit, however, but on the pit wall. The 43-year-old, who ended his active career at the end of 2019, is supporting the Porsche works team Penkse this season with his extensive experience in endurance racing
Bernhard is helping the team in his role as team and driver developer. “We try to have a fresh view from the outside and simply help the team and the drivers here and there, perhaps with a fresh perspective, perhaps to improve one thing or another.”
The connection comes as no surprise: during his active time, Bernhard himself drove for the Penske team in a Porsche RS Spyder and won the LMP2 class in the American Le Mans Series in 2007 and 2008. The Saarland native has been in the service of Porsche for 25 years and is in his fifth year as a Porsche brand ambassador.
Timo Bernhard helps out at the race track
“It’s nice that the management approached me, and when Porsche calls, I’m so close to the brand that they naturally want to help,” says Bernhard, delighted with the unexpected advisory role. “It’s a nice role to combine things and be a help, because of course you want to improve things and know all the details.”
Bernhard mainly helps at the race track and also attends the debriefings when possible. “But it’s more like what I know from my experience, and I’m also there to help the drivers with one task or another. It’s very interesting, I’m looking forward to it. “
“I’ve always had a good feel for endurance racing because I’ve never done anything else – apart from karting and a very short stint in Formula Ford and of course in the Carrera Cup,” recalls the 43-year-old, recalling that he was almost exclusively active in endurance racing.
“An honor to be able to give something back ”
“That’s what I’ve done for most of my career, so I’ve learned in many ways what endurance racing is all about,” recalls the 2010 and 2017 Le Mans winner. “So it’s not just about being fast and being the star of the team, because there is no star, but you have to build a team around you, around the crew and everything else.”
“As simple as it sounds, everyone is important, and that’s how you can bring a lot of advantages to endurance racing,” says Bernhard, who meets old acquaintances at Penske – including senior director Jonathan Diuguid, who was still working as a race engineer at the time.
“We worked in the Grand-Am, which was not an easy year that we had together,” recalls Bernhard. “But I’ve known Jonathan for a long time and I’ve always felt like a Penske driver, I raced with them for five years and it’s something special and to this day I have a very good relationship with Roger [Penske] and still help in other ways. It’s also a nice honor for me to be able to give something back. “
