Porsche Motorsport has decided to postpone the introduction of the new driveshaft for its 963 LMDh after the 24h of Le Mans.
Initially, the Weissach manufacturer explained that it was already working on the piece in view of the French race, the fourth seasonal event of the FIA World Endurance Championship, in order to resolve the reliability problems that the current configuration could create.
After the success at the 24h of Daytona in January, however, there was also an improvement in the general situation of the German prototypes, thanks also to the hardware update provided by Bosch, WAE Technologies and Xtrac for the hybrid system.
“At Le Mans we will not race with the new crankshaft, the decision was made by the governing bodies of IMSA and ACO, who have set clear objectives on how to work on the piece; this will not allow us to update it before Le Mans”, he explained the Director of the official Porsche LMDh program, Urs Kuratle.
Urs Kuratle
Photo by: Porsche
Speaking to journalists present in Qatar, including Motorsport.com, he also clarified that the modification would have required the expense of a homologation fee and data collection for at least two races before Le Mans, which would have meant updating all the 963 – including customers of Jota, Proton and JDC-Miller Motorsports – of WEC and IMSA by the April 21 race in Imola, completely reviewing the Balance of Performance of both championships.
A race against time that Porsche decided not to undertake, also given the rosier situation after Daytona.
“We will have to concentrate as much as possible on all the endurance races we have on the calendar before Le Mans by running with the old crankshaft. We would not have achieved sufficient mileage with the new one. We should have introduced it at Imola; I'm not saying it's a bad decision, but 'It was clear communication from the governing bodies right from the start.”
“We tried to do it, but it was a really big challenge and too much risk. As far as I know, all the IMSA cars ran without problems with the hybrid system at Daytona. There have been several versions of this component: 2.3, 2.3* and now 2.4, and these changes have gone in a good direction.”
“Having all four 963s in the top six at Daytona, we understood many things and this contributed to the decision to postpone the engine upgrade.”
“We saw through the data that we were able to do a 24-hour race by getting all four cars to the finish line, that's the point.”
#12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: William Stevens, Callum Ilott, Norman Nato
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
While he didn't fully confirm it, Kuratle did admit that upgrading the 4.6-liter twin-turbo V8's crankshaft from 90° to 180° could in fact incur the expense of a so-called EVO joker, although the the final say belongs to the FIA, ACO and IMSA because for reliability problems it is also possible to have the OK to make changes without losing approval wildcards.
“We still want to introduce it and we will try to do it this year. Now the ball is in our court, we have to find a new date to make the change, but we have the limits imposed by the governing bodies and we have to try to respect them.”
“Once we have everything in hand and ready we will go back to them and figure out when to announce a new date for its introduction. They have to approve whether or not we are allowed to do this, but it seems that it is possible, probably by spending an EVO Joker.”
“The block is the same. You replace the old crankshaft, install the new one and that's it. We will then have to work a little on the software and there is also the case that the sound is nicer, at least from what we we hear on the test bench. Maybe now we have a more typical Porsche sound.”
“Having said that, we will have to change all the customers' engines and related spare parts. We will need to set a date to do this, but we don't have it yet. We will see how the situation evolves in the future.”
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