Just before the end of the 1,812 km Qatar race, championship leader Kevin Estre in the Porsche 963 was called into the pits – how he experienced the situation and why no repairs were made
Porsche driver Kevin Estre feared losing victory in the opening race of the 2024 World Endurance Championship (WEC) at the Lusail International Circuit in Qatar last Saturday when he was called in for a late unscheduled pit stop
The 963 entered by Porsche works team Penske, which Estre shared with Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, suffered lasting damage to the left-hand side of the car in the final hours of the 1,812 km Qatar race. This was due to collisions with two GT3 cars. According to Estre, these were a Lexus and a Ford.
Due to the damage, the Porsche had become more difficult to drive in the last two and a half hours of the race. Estre feared that a late repair stop would destroy his lead over the second-placed Peugeot of Jensen/Müller/Vergne.
“When I was told to come into the pits, I just thought: ‘Oh come on, guys’,” recalls Estre. “I was told that the underbody was smashed and that there was a hole in the fairing. That’s what it felt like. I had a lot of understeer. When driving alone, apart from a few vibrations, it was actually okay. But whenever I was driving behind another car, I was definitely struggling.”
During the pit stop seven laps from the end, the Porsche Penske Motorsport crew did not even try to repair the number 6 car. They merely affixed a new number sticker to the rear of the left side box, as the original sticker had been lost in the collisions
In addition to the sticker with the start number – which “must remain visible under all circumstances” according to WEC regulations – the part of the fairing that Estre lost during the race also included the digital position indicator. This shows whether a car is in the top 3 in its class.
As far as this LED display is concerned, the WEC Sporting Regulations are not entirely clear. It states that the display “must be functional at all times during the race”, supplemented by the note that in the event of a malfunction, “a penalty will be imposed at the discretion of the race management.”
On the approach to the late pit stop, Estre was told in his own words: “Don’t worry, it will only be a short stop and everything is under control”. The bottom line was that 47 seconds were lost as a result of the pit stop. This meant that Estre still had a considerable lead over Jean-Eric Vergne in the number 98 Peugeot 9X8.
And after the Peugeot ran out of fuel at the start of the penultimate lap, Estre brought home the victory with a final lead of 33 seconds over the Jota Porsche of Will Stevens, Callum Ilott and Norman Nato.
The victory claimed by Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the 2024 season opener is the first for the Porsche 963 in the WEC and also the first for an LMDh car. In the IMSA series in North America, the 963 won three races in its debut season (2023)
