Porsche obtains its second podium of the season in the FIA World Endurance Championship at the 6h of Fuji with a truly consistent and finally convincing performance.
The 963s proved to be the best LMDh on the Japanese track and in the Hypercar Class they immediately showed their muscles with excellent speed and pace, aware that competing against the hosts Toyota would still be tough.
Yet the official Weissach prototypes managed by Team Penske occupied the entire second row of the starting grid in Qualifying, with Kévin Estre, André Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor in third position at the wheel of the #6 driven by the Frenchman, and the #5 of Dane Cameron, Michael Christensen and Frédéric Makowiecki to follow her.
At the start the #5 was hit in the rear by the Ferrari #51, suffering a puncture on the right rear, which was repaired in the pits with an intervention which however saw the team make a mistake and incur a penalty which in the end relegated the car further to the rear .
Departure
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
Instead, the 963 #6 was immediately very fast and capable of making the most of the initial battle between Toyota and Ferrari to pull ahead, despite an error in refueling before the start leaving it with less petrol on board and therefore forced to stop with some laps ahead of the others during stops.
When Vanthoor handed over the wheel to Estre, the Frenchman saw the Toyotas slowly coming up behind him and with his proverbial determination he strenuously defended the first position, only giving it up in the final stint before rejoining and leaving room for Lotterer for the last two hours.
The German had no problems managing a more than favorable situation, with the Toyotas running away and the Ferraris at a significantly lower pace than the Porsches, thus limiting himself to consolidating a third position which finally brought an excellent mood to the German-American team .
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
“All year I made the starts, I like it and here too I got off to a good start, but in Turn 1 everyone went wide! The Ferraris passed the Toyotas and this helped us. I found myself in a good position , surprised to be able to pull away from the others because I expected the Ferraris to get closer and I was afraid of wearing the tires too much in the first 30 minutes. At that moment we had the right pace”, says Vanthoor speaking to Motorsport.com.
“In the second stint the Toyotas gained something, I didn’t think I could fight them for that long; then they caught up with us, but we led more than half the race, which is very promising. It was the best race for us so far, in Portimao we achieved a podium, but due to other people’s problems; this was thanks to us.”
“We were able to fight against the Hypercars, the Toyota is still better than us, but we led more than half the race and were fighting. Hartley seemed to have a tire problem at the end, so we were a little closer, but still the I expected the podium and I’m happy that he got there by playing it on pure pace.”
“Now the dynamic changes and rightly so. It shows that we are making progress, that we worked during the summer break and that we are going in the right direction. I know that in the end we will win races, I am 100% convinced of it. We just have to have patience”.
Estre added: “Even though the Toyotas were a little stronger than us today, I am fully satisfied with third place. Our pace was excellent and we deservedly led the race for four hours. Our enormous progress has been evident, this makes us very positive and we want to do equally well in Bahrain, if not even a little better.”
#6 PORSCHE PENSKE MOTORSPORT Porsche 963 Hybrid Hypecar of Kévin Estre, André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Motorsport.com also reached Lotterer, who did not hide his enthusiasm for a beautiful race finally completed after many bitter pills.
“It was a good race, for sure. If you think about what we drove, my teammates did a great job, it’s very promising. We need to understand why the #7 Toyota, their boss’s, was very faster in the last part of the race”, underlines the German.
“In the second stint I did a worse lap in traffic and that cost me some time, but sometimes that’s the way it is. I think it’s the best we could do, then clearly we always want more, but it’s our best result so far, together to the one in Portimao. It would be nice to be able to win soon.”
“To be honest, I was pleasantly surprised because free practice wasn’t that great, but we were focused on setting up the car for the race, always driving with a high fuel load, then came qualifying and suddenly both cars were there in front with a pretty good pace.”
“We are improving, we are taking small steps. In this championship you can’t make big steps forward, it’s not like the old days of LMP1 when you redesigned something or brought big updates. You can’t change much, so it’s about always getting closer more on what makes you go well, i.e. the right gear ratios, shock absorbers, springs and all these things. It’s not easy, they are big and heavy cars, so you have to find a compromise.”
“I knew it would be tough watching Kévin’s stint, then I saw that I was coming back and I managed the tyres, only fighting against a bit of understeer, which I improved in the second stint with the adjustments. I hoped to be able to recover at the end, but the pace was practically the same.”
“How will we go in Bahrain? It’s always an unknown, but now everything has taken a certain turn and maybe we could go the same way. If we can improve a little, we have the chance to do even better, but today it’s very difficult make judgments a priori because all the cars are quite similar and if you’re not in the right spot, it can be difficult to recover, but if you can do everything well, you can have a chance.”
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, André Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor
Photo by: Masahide Kamio
Jonathan Diuguid was also obviously beaming at the microphones of Motorsport.com and other journalists present in the paddock.
“It was a great satisfaction to have led the race for almost four hours at this pace, it shows that the team has made progress during the summer break. I don’t feel like highlighting anything in particular, I think we have made progress on the mechanical side of the car , also on the software and understanding the tyres”, analyzes the CEO of Porsche Penske Motorsport.
“I think this was an important factor in our performance, especially in the first two stints. The engineers chose the right tyres, while Ferrari and Toyota were on the hard tyres. Once everyone understood this, the true pace of the cars took over, but I think that helped us get to the front.”
“I’m only sorry about the problem with the #6, which didn’t take on enough fuel at the start. It’s a procedural issue that we have to resolve on our part. I don’t think it had a big impact on the outcome of the race.”
“Instead the #5 had a problem with the power steering, we don’t believe it is linked to the hit suffered in turn 1. We changed a pump, but it took a while, but considering our position in the standings, we had nothing to gain or lose, so we took our time. Let’s say that a short test was carried out in view of Bahrain because the cars will leave immediately for Sakhir by sea.”
“Vanthoor immediately in the lead? It was excellent, we saw that our pace in the long run was strong right from the tests, and this was also confirmed in the race. The Toyotas had different moments of performance, before the #8 was more fast, then the #7 took the lead at the end. We lost track position before the penultimate pit stop, but when we were in front we held them off. Once they took the lead, they probably had the pace to keep up with us Maybe a second place was the optimal result if everything had gone well.”
“It’s difficult to say how it would have gone if we had started from behind, but the #6 remained fairly constant in terms of pace, even if the Ferraris had no real problems. We finished ahead of them, making a decent step forward in terms of performance and now we feel fighting; we will have the opportunity to experience other days like today.”
Additional information by Jamie Klein and Rachit Tukhral
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