From a total loss to a one-two victory and the extension of the overall lead: Manthey experiences a rollercoaster of emotions in Spa, but a story with a happy ending …
A crazy weekend for Manthey: In qualifying on Friday, the 91 Manthey Porsche
“You could hardly write a better story,” says Joel Sturm, summing up the curious weekend. “After yesterday’s setback, I hardly expected to start. But the team did an incredible job and rebuilt the car.”
Luckily for Manthey: thanks to the proximity to the Nürburgring, where the team had a suitable vehicle available as a spare parts donor, the damaged Porsche could be rebuilt overnight. While WEC qualifying was still underway, the phone lines between the race track in Belgium and the team headquarters in Meuspath were already ringing off the hook.
If the accident had happened at another track on the racing calendar, for example at the season opener in Qatar, the team would most likely not have been able to compete. Nevertheless, the effort involved in rebuilding the badly damaged car overnight and sending it straight into the demanding 6-hour race without a previous test drive was enormous.
“Shows that this is a team sport “
“The team is simply incredible,” Klaus Bachler also has to admit. “A large part of the team didn’t sleep at all to make the almost impossible possible.” The white and yellow Porsche was only back on four wheels on Saturday morning, shortly before the start of the race
RED FLAG – Huge incident for 92 on Raidillon.
Driver is safe and will undergo medical checks at the hospital, as per normal procedure.WEC 6HSpa pic.twitter.com/foRahXusaI
– FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) May 10, 2024
“I’m very proud of the whole squad. That was a very special team performance,” praised Manthey Managing Director Nicki Raeder, who spoke of an “extremely intense race weekend”. “That was a weekend that showed that this is a team sport.”
“Rebuilding car number 92 overnight after the serious accident on Friday and then being able to compete for victory is a really strong performance,” said Raeder. Malichin was checked over in hospital after his accident, but was then cleared to race.
“I was fine on Saturday, apart from a few injuries, and it was my decision to start the race in close consultation with the doctors and engineers,” says the Briton. “I felt good during the race.”
Malichin, Sturm and Bachler had already won the season opener in Qatar and also led the race in Imola for a long time before losing out in the tire poker and finishing third in the end. Nevertheless, the Manthey trio also lead the overall LMGT3 standings. Due to the accident of the second-placed WRT-BMW 31 (Leung/Gelael/Farfus), the lead is now 35 points!
Too little fuel: victory lost to teammates
“After everything that happened on Friday, a great result for us. We are totally happy with second place and have taken a big step forward in the championship standings,” said a satisfied Bachler. The Austrian even went into the final lap of the race in the lead, but then had to concede defeat to the sister car
The MantheyPureRxcing No. 92 is back! Our amazing crew rebuilt the Porsche 911GT3R during the night and got the car back up and running pic.twitter.com/cwuKkBB77W
– Manthey (@manthey_racing) May 11, 2024
“After the restart [after the long interruption], we took a risk and tried to get by with one stop less,” explained the Porsche driver. “I had to slow down in the last hour to save fuel – but it was still almost enough to win.”
While the Lamborghini rivals even had to stop again shortly before the end, Bachler crossed the finish line with the last drop of fuel, while Yasser Shahin, Morris Schuring and Richard Lietz decided the race in their favor.
Manthey one-two victory comes as a complete surprise
The one-two victory came as a complete surprise to Manthey, as Schuring wanted to hand over to his team-mate Lietz shortly before the race was interrupted. However, this did not happen, which is why the team had to make the pit stop immediately after the restart and initially dropped back to ninth position
Final driver Lietz therefore did not know that he was in contention for victory. “The engineer said: ‘You’re in P5 now, maybe we’ll fight for a podium place’,” said the Austrian. “And then suddenly it was: ‘Now it’s about the win’, and I thought: ‘Okay, I didn’t get P3 or anything else’. So from a driver’s point of view, I was surprised by the result in the last stint.”
Lietz was also unaware of the reason why Bachler slowed down so much in the final minutes. “I had no information from the team, it wasn’t really clear what had happened,” reports the eventual winner, who suspected a puncture and was let through without a fight by his team-mate.
“I could have decided to stop again or take second place,” Bachler told Autosport.com. The Austrian did not defend himself during the lead change. “If it hadn’t been the sister car, I would definitely have tried. But I don’t think I would have had a chance because we would have run out of energy.”
“It was a rollercoaster of emotions – from the feeling of losing the victory completely to the fantastic final spurt by Richie [Lietz],” said debut winner Schuring jubilantly. “Now we’ve won the race, it’s just incredible.” In the overall standings, the victorious Manthey trio is in sixth place, 47 points behind their leading teammates.