Category: Le Mans/WEC

Porsche works driver Richard Lietz feels Michael Fassbender is well-prepared for his second Le Mans start next weekend and deserves a better result after his turbulent debut at the event in 2022.

The Irish movie star, who will share Proton Competiton’s No. 911 Porsche 911 RR 19 with Lietz and Martin Rump, has been improving every time he steps in the car, according to the four-time Le Mans class-winning Austrian.

GTE Am’s 21-car field for the category’s final trip to Le Mans is set to be hotly contested, but Lietz feels the combination of Fassbender’s additional experience, Proton’s professionalism as an outfit and the 911 RSR 19 platform puts the trio in with a chance of turning some heads.

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Since Lietz was originally paired with Fassbender in 2020, Lietz has taken a lot of pride in helping him develop as a driver. Fassbender, he says, is a fast learner, who takes feedback and advice very seriously.

“The main reason that I am doing this is because he is a good guy,” Lietz told RACER. “He loves racing so much, and even if this project ends, he will continue. He is addicted. From the beginning, I have told him everything I know. Spending time with him at circuits is a pleasure, it’s like a good weekend with friends. Like racing when I started.

“And this year, with the factory program in GTE over, this has become my main program and I am looking for big results.”

For evidence of his improvement, look no further than his performances at the ELMS pre-season test and race weekend at Barcelona in April.

In the European Le Mans Series Prologue, he set a time 0.8s off Proton owner/driver Christian Ried in the team’s sister No. 77 RSR. It was an impressive feat considering the enormous gap in experience. Then in the race weekend proper, he qualified sixth in the 12-car GTE class, with a lap just 0.4s off the pole time, before putting in a strong performance during the race.

“Barcelona (the opening round of the ELMS season) was a good start,” Lietz continued. “He did everything he had to do, I was like, “f*** we can fight for a poduim!” Then we were unlucky with an LMP3 (Rump was hit with an hour to go, costing the car multiple laps). I hope we can get at least one this year, he deserves it.”

Last year, the difference in attention and pressure for Fassbender between the ELMS race weekends and Le Mans was stratospheric. Clearly, ELMS weekends will never attract the number of eyes that Le Mans does, but at his Le Mans debut, there was a huge spotlight on him individually. “He couldn’t walk five paces without being bothered,” Lietz said.

While Fassbender’s Proton Porsche did make it to the finish, the race didn’t go to plan. Along with Matt Campbell and Zach Robichon, the finished 51st overall and 16th in class after an incident-filled race.

In 2023, Lietz hopes it will be different. With the major headlines all centered on the centenary celebrations and the new-look Hypercar class, Fassbender is sure to see a drop off in the level of attention. This will allow him to focus on the race in a way that he couldn’t last year.

“Last year the pressure got to him,” Lietz admitted. “He wasn’t himself during the week. My goal is to ensure he knows that it doesn’t matter. Yes, it’s Le Mans, it’s the 100th anniversary, there are so many superlatives, but it’s just a race. There’s no need to get more nervous. The problem is Le Mans is such a long event, it’s easy to get tired and nervous before the race starts.

“Everything that keeps the attention off us helps us. Last year he couldn’t even put his glasses on without five cameras filming him. He couldn’t use the toilet without people wanting a picture. At some point, you have to realize he’s just a normal person.

“He’s a racer that wants to perform. He’s very competitive.”

Since it took delivery of its Porsche 963 ahead of the 6 Hours of Spa, it’s been all-systems go for the first privateer Hypercar effort in the FIA WEC from Hertz Team JOTA.

Once the build of the 963 was finished and the car was shaken down at Weissach in April, the team went straight to Belgium to race it. Since then it has spent time analyzing data, rebuilding the car, testing at Paul Ricard and hosting a pre-Le Mans event in London. Now the team finds itself in Le Mans for the centenary event and with the test day complete, race week is finally here.

It was a risk for the team to cram so much into such a tight timeframe, and opt to make the 24 Hours just the second race weekend for its Hypercar program. But team boss Sam Hignett feels that in hindsight it was definitely the correct decision.

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“It was a very challenging period, but I think it was the right thing to do,” he told RACER. “It was risky to go straight out and race. But a lot of hard work and a dose of luck meant it played in our favor.”

The Porsche 963 is a very new race car to JOTA, but not to Porsche itself. The car racked up over 19,000 miles of testing in its development program and already has a pole position and victory to its name in IMSA competition. Therefore, the main task for Hertz Team JOTA is getting up to speed with the car’s nuances.

“There is lots of learning to be done,” Hignett explained. “It’s easy to forget how much we have learnt about running the ORECA over the years. This car is three times as complex as the ORECA, from an electronics, and sensors point of view. So we have three times as much learning to do.

“It’s a lot more complicated to start and run. We went from missing the first fire-up of the weekend by 36 hours, to missing the last fire-up by half an hour, to give you an idea of the scale of improvement over the six days at Spa.

“There is a level of training that’s needed (in terms of safety and operating the hybrid system) which we have gone to an extreme on. We have had all our front-of-house staff learn it, which is over the top, but there is a level of detail and understanding from the car crew that is needed compared to a P2 car.”

JOTA didn’t go into Spa entirely blind though, as it had members of staff at the Porsche facility in Weissach helping with the build and learning how it operates.

“We built the car with Porsche, we had people in Weissach during Sebring (race week) building the car,” Hignett said. “We had a member of JOTA staff over there for six or seven weeks prior to us taking delivery. There must have been a dozen of us there for the rollout. It was a big operation for both us and Porsche to get it done.”

The team’s race weekend in Belgium as a whole was hugely encouraging. It qualified seventh, ahead of both Peugeots and one of the Penske-run Porsches, and continued to mix with factory cars throughout the race. Finishing sixth overall was hugely impressive considering the entire meeting was one big test for its staff.

“The feedback post-race was actually typical driver frustration,” Hignett said. “Six hours previously they were read the riot act, with us telling them we needed the car back because we had no spares, to being frustrated at the end of the race because we started messing around with fuel strategies to learn more about the car.

“We took the pace out of the car and they felt they could have finished better than sixth. It was a rollercoaster of emotions for them, though I’m sure they feel proud now looking back because we achieved so much. And just seeing Antonio [Felix Da Costa] overtake the Toyota at the beginning, that was very cool.”

Then came the Le Mans Test Day last weekend, where it completed 55 laps during the six hours of track time and set a best time of 3m31.290s, 1.7s off the No. 51 Ferrari that set the pace. It was an encouraging start.

“The Porsche was good,” Hignett said after the test. “The morning session, we were the fastest Porsche, and in the afternoon we ran out of time to do a quali run with Will [Stevens], which he couldn’t complete, so it was a shame. In the end, our time was set by Yifei [Ye] after two stints on the hard tire. We were just focusing on long runs, trying to get two sets of tires up to temperature for two to three stints.

“What we are focused on in reality is procedures and reliability. Finding niggles. There are more gains to be made in procedures than there is in finding three or four-tenths a lap.

“Performance is likely going to have to wait until after Le Mans. But I think with what we made happen at Spa, we are in a reasonable window, we are privileged not to have to worry about performance too much because we have a car developed by Porsche and Multimatic.”

Four-time NBA champion and two-time Olympic gold medalist LeBron James has been named the official starter for the centenary running of the Le Mans 24 Hours this weekend.

James, who currently plays for the Los Angeles Lakers and now holds the all-time NBA scoring record, will lower the French flag, signalling the start of the race at 16:00 local time on Saturday.

“There’s nothing like seeing and experiencing sports at their highest level,” James said. “It’s an honor for me to be part of this historic moment in motorsport and help celebrate the centenary of one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

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“I look forward to kicking off this iconic race and watching its world-class drivers compete on Le Mans’ global stage.”

Since 1949, the role of race starter has often been given to a personality from the world of politics, sport, film or industry. Previous official starters include Brad Pitt (2016), Rafael Nadal (2018), Alain Delon (1996), French president Georges Pompidou (1972) and Steve McQueen (1971).

Pierre Fillon, president of the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, says he was delighted that James accepted the invitation.

“I am thrilled to welcome LeBron James to the 24 Hours of Le Mans centenary and thank him most sincerely for accepting our invitation,” said Fillon.

“The 24 Hours of Le Mans is a world-renowned event that, in the past, has welcomed some great names from various fields. LeBron James is a true sporting legend whose list of achievements and records commands respect and admiration. We are looking forward to introducing him to the unique Le Mans atmosphere and the excitement generated by the centenary of the world’s greatest endurance race.”

James is not the only American sporting icon who will be present for the event, as seven-time NFL Super Bowl winner Tom Brady is expected to be on hand to support the HERTZ Team JOTA Porsche effort in Hypercar.