Porsche Penske Motorsport – Syndication Server

With wins in the IMSA and WEC openers, Porsche Penske Motorsport is a team transformed

Another weekend, another major race win for the Porsche 963. After a tricky first year for the Porsche LMDh program, Porsche Penske Motorsport and its privateer teams in both IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship, 2024 is quickly becoming a …

Another weekend, another major race win for the Porsche 963.

After a tricky first year for the Porsche LMDh program, Porsche Penske Motorsport and its privateer teams in both IMSA and the FIA World Endurance Championship, 2024 is quickly becoming a year to remember for the storied German brand’s flagship motorsport program.

After a rather underwhelming start to life in GTP and Hypercar, towards the end of the 2023 season there were signs that the tide was turning for Porsche and its Penske factory cars. Looking back, the strong performance at the FIA WEC 6 Hours of Fuji — in which Penske led a large portion of the race — and wins in IMSA at Road America and Indianapolis were a sign of things to come.

Following an off-season that was used to regroup and prep minor electronic reliability upgrades that were made ready in time for the Rolex 24 At Daytona, the Penske operation has come out swinging. To get things started, it won the twice-around-the-clock classic in Florida before claiming a historic double podium in the WEC season opener yesterday in Qatar amid a 1-2-3 for the brand, thanks to HertzTeam JOTA’s heroics and a heartbreaking end to the race for Peugeot.

The body language of everyone involved in the program has improved dramatically. There is now real momentum and confidence that this year will see the 963 earn its stripes and add yet another successful chapter to Porsche’s storied history in sportscar racing.

So what’s behind this sudden change of form?

Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor celebrate after leading Porsche’s sweep at Lusail International Circuit. Motorsport Images

“It’s a combination of things,” Andre Lotterer told RACER after finally scoring his first victory with Porsche in Qatar and his first WEC win since 2015. “We learned a lot of things the hard way last year. There were adjustments we needed to make as a team. Our operation is more efficient now. We use data better, we have new members in the team, new engineers and everything felt calm and composed during the race.”

Ahead of the 1812km race, the Porsche 963 in the hands of Penske and JOTA set the pace at the Lusail International Circuit all week long. It looked encouraging from the outside, but nobody within the team was ready to get carried away. Ahead of the race, a senior team source told RACER that they genuinely expected a similar gap between the LMDh and LMH-spec cars to last season in the race.

Once the lights went out, though, this simply wasn’t the case. In fact, not only were Porsche’s 963s — including the No. 12 from JOTA — the class of the field, but the main challenge didn’t come from Toyota or Ferrari. Instead that came from Peugeot’s No. 93 9X8. The French team, which has struggled to make an impact with the radically-designed 9X8, ran out front early on and at one point in the middle of the race looked poised to take back the lead before the car’s pace fell away when the sun went down.

Even with a late scare concerning the winning Porsche’s number panel falling off after contact with a Lexus LMGT3 car, Peugeot’s race promptly fell apart, the car running out of fuel and limping home on the final lap before being disqualified after post-race technical checks. It was reminiscent in some ways to Toyota’s downfall at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2016. Though clearly the stakes were not as high and Peugeot has the added benefit of being able to immediately shift its focus to Imola and the build-up to Le Mans, with an updated 9X8 that promises to regularly give it a fighting chance.

Reigning Le Mans winner Ferrari had looked poised to get its season off to a strong start. And it may have had a chance at victory had all three 499Ps not suffered from self-inflicted wounds, with contact and penalties destroying its race. Cadillac’s story was similar, an incident at the start leaving its V-Series.R with a mountain to climb to score a haul of points that reflected the car’s encouraging long-run pace.

Toyota was the real enigma, though. Nyck de Vries extracted a level of performance in qualifying to sneak onto the front row that the team was unable to sustain in the race. The Lusail circuit is frequently described as the most weight-sensitive circuit on the calendar and with the GR010 HYBRID running as the heaviest Hypercar (at 1089kg/2400 lbs), it clearly made a difference.

However, Porsche believes that its ability to beat the likes of Toyota and Ferrari is not simply a product of a BoP change and/or the Qatar circuit suiting the 963, although both were surely factors.

“We fell short in the WEC last year, but that win shows we can compete in both championships,” Penske managing director Jonathan Diuguid said. “We participate in a BoP championship, so that’s part of it but at the end of the day we are now doing the best we can with the situations we face. The result of that is what you saw in the race.”

When asked for an assessment of the program’s upward trajectory prior to the Qatar race, Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach spoke about the benefits of its “one team” setup for IMSA and WEC with Penske running both programs, which has helped improve the car more rapidly and make key decisions regarding upgrades and refinements.

“2023 had a lot of ups and downs — we did a lot of homework over the winter,” he said. “I know Daytona is IMSA, but for us, it’s all one team, one program. It’s not all about the performance level of the car; in Daytona we had all four cars make the finish without issues. This was remarkable and encouraging.

“Last year we were not in a position to win races for many reasons. There is some momentum now and Daytona was a big boost. That’s an advantage of one organization, we have Penske in Mooresville (N.C.) and (Porsche Penske) in Mannheim (Germany) running the programs.”

Team boss Roger Penske added in a media roundtable at Qatar that key hires made to the program’s leadership structure have played a part too.

“A year ago we were building Mannheim, hiring people and trying to come together with a new highly technical product with common parts coming from outside vendors that we had no control over,” he said. “Jan Lang (from Joest) has come on board now to be the managing director of the team in Mannheim, which is a step. Then we have Travis Law (hired as competition director), Jonathan Diuguid and Stefan Moser (Porsche’s LMDh technical director) now. The DNA is very positive — we have added people with lots of capability. And we can test all the time now — in the U.S. and over here — and step forward. I remember going to tracks to test, sit there for three days and run for only five hours. It’s a different routine today when we go, getting data for use in IMSA and in WEC.

“A year ago we were worrying about reliability; now we are worrying about performance.”

In short, Penske said, both the Porsche operation and his team, were “stuttering” because they “didn’t have the components” they needed.

But another element that pushed Porsche’s resources to the limit was its commitment to customers. It pushed hard to become the first LMDh manufacturer to get a customer program off the ground, delivering cars to Hertz Team JOTA, JDC-Miller and Proton Competition during the season.

Supplying customers like Hertz Team JOTA from the outset added to the scope of Porsche’s challenge, but is already paying off. JEP/Motorsport Images

“We didn’t make our life easy — coming together, building up Mannheim, everything from scratch, new car, customer cars at the same time,” Laudenbach said. “Our challenge was the biggest in the entire field and we paid the price. But on the other side, the decision we made was long-term. Maybe it doesn’t pay off in one year, but we are thinking further ahead.”

When asked by RACER whether Porsche would still opt to offer customer cars in year 1 if it could rerun the year, Laudenbach gave a revealing answer.

“If it was the same situation and we knew about the complexity of the situation, I think we would not provide customer cars in the first year,” he said. “That doesn’t mean it is the wrong decision to sell customer cars. Nevertheless, we are proud of what we achieved — no other brand put this together and provides real customer cars.”

Looking ahead, obviously the target is win number 20 at Le Mans. June is the month that will receive the most scrutiny from industry observers and Porsche’s top brass. This is nothing new and all nine Hypercar factory teams will be prioritizing Le Mans over a WEC title at this early stage of the campaign. This difference is that at Porsche, and Penske for that matter, success is expected no matter the scenario.

It’s still too early to get a read on where this WEC season will go. The new LMDh manufacturers have yet to hit their stride and Toyota and Ferrari’s Qatar performances may well be looked back on as a blip. But the signs are there that the days of Toyota running the table and LMH cars in Hypercar wielding a significant performance advantage may be over.

“We don’t come to the racetrack to fill the grid,” concluded Laudenbach. “Hopefully all the work will pay off and this year shows we made the right decisions.”

Porsche sweeps WEC podium in Qatar after Peugeot heartbreak

The No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 claimed a historic victory for the team and the LMDh formula in FIA WEC competition under the floodlights Saturday in the Qatar 1812km race, after late drama resulted in a shock podium sweep for the German …

Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre put in a commanding performance, surviving a late scare in the closing stages when contact with one of the LMGT3 Lexus RC F GT3s knocked off the car’s left-side number panel, to lead home the all-Porsche podium.

“I went on the inside and he turned in,” Estre said. “He didn’t see me. Many guys out there in GT3 aren’t used to this traffic. I don’t want to blame anyone but it was sometimes difficult in the traffic. I’ve never had so much contact in a race.

“The car didn’t feel great after that, we could survive but we missed out on pure pace at the end.”

The result marks Penske’s first win as a team in the WEC, the first win for the 963 in the championship and the first win for an LMDh-spec car in Hypercar competition. The victory also adds to the 963’s perfect start to 2024, which began with a victory in the IMSA-opening Rolex 24 At Daytona in January.

It was also the first time a manufacturer swept an overall podium un the WEC since 2013 at Spa.

While not an all-time classic, the 2024 season opener at the Lusail International Circuit provided a milestone result for the Hypercar formula, which saw the status quo turned on its head. After the 2023 season saw Toyota and Ferrari almost exclusively set the pace at each round, Saturday’s race became a battle between the Porsche Penske 963 and Peugeot’s No. 93 9X8 in the final send-off for the first iteration of the French OEM’s wingless challenger.

So close, yet still catastrophe for Peugeot. Motorsport Images

The No. 50 Ferrari led the opening laps after a rocket start for Miguel Molina before Nico Muller drove the No. 93 to the lead by the end of the first hour. The No. 6 then took control of the race in the second hour, when Muller ran wide at Turn 1, letting Vanthoor through.

From then on, when the race settled down, it essentially became a chase between the No. 6 and No. 93, with the gap expanding and contracting as the conditions changed and the tyre strategies played out. At one point early in the second half of the race, the margin shrunk to under 10s, but the Porsche was able to keep the 9X8 at arm’s length and pull away when the sun went down.

In the end, the No. 6 crossed the line 34s clear of the competition after a late stop to place a new number sticker on the car.

“It was a bit crazy, to be honest,” race winner Kevin Estre said. “I had a massive hit with the Lexus, we had a lot of vibration after that and no grip. It made it spicy to the end. But the whole team did an amazing job, no issues. I am really happy with where we are today compared to where we started last year.”

After a loss of power in the dying seconds of the race for Jean-Eric Vergne, the Peugeot failed to take second, making it an all-Porsche podium. It was a crushing blow that ruined what looked to be the 9X8 and Peugeot TotalEnergies’ most convincing showing.

Finishing second after 335 laps of the 5.4km circuit was eventually the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Callum Illot after what was easily the British team’s strongest performance since graduating to the top class.

Ilott finished just 1s ahead of Matt Campbell in the pole-sitting No. 5 Penske Porsche, which struggled with vibration issues early but nabbed third to make it a double podium for Penske.

The late heartbreak for the No. 93 Peugeot, which limped home down in seventh, promoted Cadillac Racing’s V-Series.R to fourth.

Cadillac believed it was in with a chance pre-race, confident the V-Series.R’s long run pace would keep it in the fight. But its plans unravelled at Turn 1 on lap one when Alex Lynn tagged the No. 94 Peugeot, damaging its front-left corner. While it wasn’t entirely clear from the TV footage, Lynn’s teammate Sebastien Bourdais said the car snapped on Lynn because he was hit from the rear by the No. 38 HERTZ Team JOTA Porsche.

The contact forced the team to change the car’s front and rear at its first stop, dropping it down the order. A strong run from Lynn, Bourdais and Earl Bamber saw the car eventually finish fourth.

“To start the season here with a fourth place is sort of where we kicked off last season,” Bamber said. “I think it gives us great momentum. The team did an amazing job and on the strategy, they did a solid job to pull us all the way back up. If you would have said at the beginning of the day that we would get a fourth place, I think we would have taken that comfortably. It’s something that we can build on going to Imola and Spa and the rest of the season.”

On pace, Ferrari may have been a contender for the victory if the race was run again, too. However, all three 499Ps were delayed and were forced into recovery drives to salvage as many points as possible.

The No. 50 led the race in the opening hour but was handed a drive-through for crossing the white line at pit-in early on, failed to find the pace to climb back up the order and crossed the line eighth. On the other side of the garage, the No. 51 then needed a rear clip change after James Calado tagged an LMGT3 car, which sent the rear bodywork flying into the air after becoming dislodged. It finished 14th.

Not without its own drama, AF Corse’s privately-entered Ferrari battled back to be the highest-finishing horse. JEP/Motorsport Images

AF Corse’s privately-funded No. 83 499P enjoyed the most impressive outing of the three, but after threatening to stay in the running for a podium in the opening hours, contact for Robert Shwartzman meant it, too, needed a new rear end at a pit stop. This cost valuable time, but it did cross the line as the highest-placed Italian prototype in fifth.

Perhaps the greatest surprise was just how anonymous Toyota’s GR010 HYBRIDs were once the race got underway. After years of dominance from the Japanese make, it was a strange sight to see both its cars struggle to stay on the lead lap in the opening hours of the race.

The No. 7 started on the front row but was swallowed up by the pack in the opening sequence and ended up a lap down before the halfway mark. The second half of the race saw the car in the mix at times, but nobody at Toyota Gazoo Racing will be satisfied with sixth.

The 2023 title-winning No. 8 sister car struggled too, even more than the No. 7. It finished way down in 10th, despite suffering no notable issues.

All week long Toyota played down its chances. The team believed that the weight increase and power decrease it was handed for the race — plus general improvements in form and execution from its competition — would make it a challenge to score points.

Following a quiet run in the test and practice, Nyck de Vries’ heroics in Qualifying provided a brief flash of hope. In the end, once the race got underway, it became clear that this was not going to be a memorable weekend. Instead, this circuit, which is new to the championship, and the tweaked balance of performance values for the race, appeared to favor the characteristics of the 963, V-Series.R and 9X8.

As for the new cars, as expected this race had the look of an extended test session for BMW, Alpine, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini. The reliability was impressive, though the No. 15 BMW ended up in the garage briefly in the ninth hour and the Tipo6-C was forced into retirement with front suspension woes after 157 laps.

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The No. 36 Alpine A424 was the only one of them to finish in the points in ninth, but it was overall an encouraging debut for the new LMDh prototypes which will almost certainly improve rapidly as the season goes on.

The only real concern at this point is just how far Isotta and Lamborghini were off the pace. The Isotta was multiple laps down when it retired in the second half of the race, having been dealt a 200s stop-go for a technical infringement, and the SC63 crossed the line five laps behind the winning car.

It did, however, finish ahead of the No. 15 BMW that hit trouble late on, the No. 94 Peugeot which spent 30 minutes in the garage with battery issues and the No. 38 JOTA Porsche which retired in its pit box after Oliver Rasmussen couldn’t get the car fired in the final hour.

The LMGT3 race at Qatar wasn’t quite the door-banging thriller that many of the teams expected before the lights went out, but it generated plenty of talking points and added to Porsche’s perfect weekend.

The class was won by the No. 92 Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche 911 LMGT3 R 992 after an engrossing battle with the Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler put together a masterful, fault-free performance in the Lithuanian team’s FIA WEC debut.

The performance continued the young team’s title-winning form from the Asian Le Mans Series over the winter and handed it an early championship lead.

Behind it was a memorable 1-2 finish for Aston Martin’s new-for-2024 Vantage LMGT3, as D’Station’s example took third behind the American-flagged entry from Heart of Racing.

RESULTS

Penske Porsche, Era Motorsports share prototype spoils at Rolex 24

What a difference a year makes. After the two Porsche Penske Motorsport 963s were nowhere near the podium in their 2023 debut, every Porsche in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, including the privateer cars from JDC-Miller MotorSports and Proton Competition, ran near flawlessly. It was the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 squad of Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell and Josef Newgarden that was just a bit more perfect in claiming victory, the first for all of them and the first victory for Penske since 1969. It was the 19th overall victory at the Rolex 24 for Porsche and the first since 2010.

Pipo Derani, Jack Aitken and Tom Blomqvist finished second in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, coming short by 2.112s after nearly 24 hours of racing and despite running what Derani described as a flawless race.

Improbably, the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 finished third in the hands of Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz, Colton Herta and Jenson Button, holding off the No. 6 PPM Porsche 963 at the end. The No. 40 had rolled to a stop in the middle of the night, but a reset got the car going and strategy put the car in a better position than might have been expected.

From the start, both of the PPM Porsche 963s as well as the two Cadillacs showed similar pace, and it seemed apparent that it would come down to a Porsche vs. Cadillac fight for the victory. In the cooler night, and early morning hours, the Porsches seems to have an edge. But as the day warmed up, the No. 31 Cadillac came on strong. Entering the race’s final two hours, Blomqvist turned up the wick and caught Nasr.

Blomqvist took the No. 31 to the pits earlier than necessary, but well within the window to make it to the end on one more stop. Nasr brought the Porsche in three laps later for full energy and fresh tires, emerging from the pits ahead of Blomqvist. However, with the Cadillac having warm tires and Nasr’s still coming up to temperature, he was able to squeeze by heading into Turn 1.

WHAT A MOVE!@tom_blomqvist passes for the overall race lead in the #Rolex24 at @Daytona!

📺 : @NBC and @Peacock pic.twitter.com/tjMsz9vpKU

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) January 28, 2024

But after more than four hours of green flag running, a late caution set up a 30m sprint to the finish, and came perfectly timed for the GTPs to make their final stop for a quick fill. The Penske crew got Nasr out first, and that was the the race.

“The race only finishes at the checkered flag. There’s no decision until then,” said Nasr. “The race really came down to the wire at the very final stop. You know, it was it pretty much all about the fuel numbers. Each one was the energy numbers we were reaching. And I just have to say that was a great call from the team, from Porsche Penske Motorsport. Just to give me the opportunity to be the in the lead again in that final part of the race and then it was down to me to hit the numbers and keep the No. 31 behind.”

Blomqvist came close a few times as he attacked, but could never put together a move to pass.

“At the end of the race, we had the pace advantage,” Blomqvist said. “It was just so difficult to pass. The Porsche was really strong on the straight, we were really good in the infield, so it was just hard to make anything count. There weren’t many cars there at the end of the race in terms of traffic to to kind of find an opportunity and then Felipe at the end … I needed like one small mistake. He went wide by like a few meters, but other than that there was no opportunity.”

In contrast to the 2023 debut of the LMDh cars in GTP when both Acuras and both Cadillacs ran without major trouble, two key competitors from each fell victim to problems in the race. The No. 10 WTRAndretti Acura ARX-06 of Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Brendon Hartley and Marcus Ericsson pulled to a stop after a little more than eight hours with Albuquerque at the wheel, right after he detected a funny smell. The problem was diagnosed as a wiring loom issue, and while it was replaced and the car returned to the track after a long repair, it was eventually retired.

The No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R from Chip Ganassi Racing looked to have the pace for victory with Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, but went to the garage in the middle of the night withe an undiagnosed mechanical issue and never re-emerged.

Both BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8s had difficulties during the night. Both were repaired and returned to the track, but finished 13 (No. 25) and 15 (No. 24) laps down.

LMP2 winners, Era Motorsports. Jake Galstad/Motorsport Images

Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel, Connor Zilisch and Christian Rasmussen took the LMP2 victory after emerging as a contender overnight. The team recovered from an early incident in which Merriman was caught up in other cars having contact and soldiered on, moving steadily up the order to claim the second win for Era and for Dalziel and Merriman together after they won in 2021. It was Dalziel’s third Rolex 24 victory, and the first for Rasmussen and 17-year-old Zilisch.

The No. 18 was hanging with the leaders heading into Saturday evening, but didn’t make a move for the front until the middle of the night.

“In my mind, it’s a 24 hour race … first half of race, a lot of [it] is about risk management, right?” said Merriman. “So you don’t need to be in the lead after eight hours. But the last three hours is a knife fight. And you need to be up. You need to be in the first couple of positions at that point and we were, so I think that’s kind of part of the strategy.”

Fortunately Era had some sharp blades when it came time for the knife fight.

“We kind of gambled … we were probably the most high downforce of the P2s,” said Dalziel. “We were a little bit of sitting ducks when somebody’s drafting us, but when we can kind of break that 1.5-2s – the draft in the P2 car is almost 10 kilometers an hour. So I think, for us, once we were at the front, we can kind of manage a little bit of pace and the field. But it’s just a good day. I think each one I’ve won is more special.

“These two guys … Christian, last year, was a stud for us. Connor, the same. I feel like today Dwight and I just kind of did our job and I actually…gave up my last stint because I felt like these two guys were the strongest guys on the day and wanted to make sure that we put our best feet forward for the last stint.”

Rasmussen had a solid lead erased by the final yellow, but not only managed to stay out front, he stretched it to a 6.8s margin of victory. George Kurtz, Colin Braun, Malthe Jakobsen and Toby Sowery finished second in the No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA. Riley Motorsports was third with Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, Josh Burdon and Felipe Massa in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA.

RESULTS BY CLASS

Rolex 24, Hour 24: After 55 years, Penske triumphs at Daytona again

The first caution in four hours set up a 30m sprint to the finish of the 62nd Rolex 24 at Daytona, rapidly changing the fortunes of several competitors. Vasser Sullivan Racing’s hopes for a GTD victory went up in flames, literally, in the final …

The first caution in four hours set up a 30m sprint to the finish of the 62nd Rolex 24 at Daytona, rapidly changing the fortunes of several competitors.

Vasser Sullivan Racing’s hopes for a GTD victory went up in flames, literally, in the final hour. Leaving the pits, Parker Thompson pulled the No. 12 Lexus RC F over with flames spitting out of the engine compartment. Team principal Jimmy Vasser expected the cause was a plenum fire.

It hasn’t been the #Rolex24 the Vasser Sullivan team has hoped for.

Parker Thompson put his own fire out as we’re now under one hour remaining.

📺 : @NBC and @Peacock pic.twitter.com/b0zXFWj8Me

— NBC Sports (@NBCSports) January 28, 2024

The ensuing caution, though, erased big leads in LMP2 and GTD, and set up a four-way battle to the finish in GTP. Tom Blomqvist had held the lead in the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R, but Felipe Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 beat him out of the pits as both took short fills. The top four GTP competitors were nose to tail for the restart, Louis Deletraz holding third in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06.

Blomqvist did all he could, including setting the fastest lap of race at 1m35.554s with 23m left, but he couldn’t make a move on Nasr while the Porsche got better breaks in traffic. When the checker fell right after 1:40 p.m. with 1m35s left on the race clock, Nasr took the victory for he, Dane Cameron, Matt Campbell and Josef Newgarden. It was the first Rolex 24 at Daytona victory for each driver, and the first for Penske since 1969 when he won the race with a Lola T70.

Blomqvist took the Cadillac across the line to score second for Pipo Derani and Jack Aitken. Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz, Colton Herta and Jenson Button finished third in the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06.

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Christian Rasmussen held his lead in the No. 18 Era Motorsports ORECA O7 Gibson to take victory for he, Dwight Merriman, Ryan Dalziel and Connor Zilisch. The No. 04 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA of George Kurtz, Colin Braun, Malthe Jakobsen and Toby Sowery, ahead of Gar Robinson, Felipe Fraga, Josh Burdon and Felipe Massa in the No, 74 Riley Motorsports ORECA.

Daniel Serra had a lap on second place Laurin Heinrich in the No. 77 AO Racing Porsche that was erased with the caution, but the Porsche had nothing for Serra’s No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrrari 296 GT3. Serra held on for Risi’s first victory in its Ferrari era, and second victory after an SRP2 win in 2002. Serra, Davide Rigon, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado’s win was also the second 24-hour race victory for the 296 GT3, the first coming in the 2023 24 Hours of the Nürburgring with Frikadelli Racing.

Polesitters AO Racing with Seb Priaulx, Laurin Heinrich and Michael Christensen ended up second. The No. 1 Paul Miller Racing, which had looked to have a chance at victory going into the final hours, fell victim to a brake problem and the team scored a third-place finish for Bryan Sellers, Madison Snow, Neil Verhagen and Sheldon van der Linde.

Winward Racing took its second Rolex 24 victory in four years after Daniel Morad held off a pair of charging Ferraris. The No. 57 Mercedes AMG was third overall for a 2.731s margin of victory for Morad, Russell Ward, Philip Ellis and Indy Dontje. It was Ferrari 296 GT3 in second and third, Miguel Molina, Simon Mann, Francois Heriau and Alessio Rovera taking second for AF Corse and Conquest Racing’s Manny Franco, Alberto Costa Balboa, Alessandro Balzan and Cedric Sbirrazzuoli taking third.

Full reports to follow.

RESULTS

Porsche Penske Motorsport, No. 7 Porsche, wins the 2024 Rolex 24 at DAYTONA

Porsche Penske Motorsport wins the 2024 Rolex 24 at DAYTONA for the second time in the program’s history with the No. 7 Porsche.

[autotag]Porsche Penske Motorsport[/autotag] has returned to victory lane at the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA. The No. 7 Porsche, driven by Josef Newgarden, Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron, and Matt Campbell, beat Action Express Racing to secure its first Rolex 24 at DAYTONA victory since 1969. It is the second time Porsche Penske Motorsport has won the event since its debut.

Roger Penske’s reign of success over the last 365 days has been nothing short of phenomenal. The same goes for Newgarden, who won the 2023 Indianapolis 500 for the first time in his career. However, it was Nasr who held off Tom Blomqvist in the No. 31 Cadillac during the final stint of the race following a late-race caution.

It's time for a new watch! ⌚️

A 24-hour battle comes down to just seconds, and the #Rolex24 goes to @Team_Penske! pic.twitter.com/GrsFHxUirF

— NASCAR (@NASCAR) January 28, 2024

It is an amazing story for Porsche Penske Motorsport, and Penske will hope this translates to another year of success across all forms of racing. As for the other winners at the Rolex 24 at DAYTONA, they include the No. 18 Era Motorsport ORECA in LMP2, the No. 62 Risi Competizione Ferrari in GTD Pro, and the No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes in GTD.

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Momentum building for Porsche Penske WEC program at year’s end

Porsche Penske Motorsport’s World Endurance Championship team is heading into the 2023 season finale and the offseason with a spring in its step, hoping to build on its strong showing at Fuji last time out. In Japan, Porsche led more than half the …

In Japan, Porsche led more than half the race, its No. 6 963 fending off the Toyota attack until the fourth set of pit stops were completed. It marked the first time that an LMDh-spec prototype truly looked capable of taking a win on pace over Toyota and Ferrari’s LMH-spec challengers this season.

This is something that Porsche hopes will continue into this weekend’s eight-hour finale and next season. No. 6 driver Kevin Estre says the performance at Fuji was a real boost for everyone involved in the program.

“It was promising,” he told RACER. “Laurens (Vanthoor) made a great start and gave me the car in the lead with a gap. We knew Toyota was coming but I made no mistakes. I enjoyed leading but it was stressful because if I made any mistakes, they would pass and win it. It took a lot of strength mentally.

“For this week, I think this circuit is going to be OK for us. There is a lot of straight-line braking and we have been strong there for the last few races.”

Andre Lotterer echoed his teammate’s thoughts.

“It was very encouraging at Fuji — it’s always good to be on the podium knowing you could have done better,” he said. “Still, we need more performance but we are operating and executing very well.”

Porsche’s steps in improving the car’s impact on tire life will play a big role in allowing it to compete in Bahrain, on what is a notoriously abrasive circuit.

“This is a race about degradation, and mostly on the rear tires,” Estre said. “We are top three in that category, but Toyota is the best. This race will be won in that department, but if we have a good balance and execute well there’s no reason we can’t challenge them.

“We understand our car better — we control the ride better and understand the aero balance better. Since Monza, we have been better on tire life but obviously, if we are three-tenths off we will be nowhere.

“We have made a lot of steps on setup throughout the season and hopefully, the testing we do in the offseason is going to help us be on a level with Toyota and Ferrari.”

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Porsche has also been handed a 7kg weight break for this weekend’s race as part of the first “Platform BoP” change of the season, meaning Cadillac’s V-Series.R will also benefit from the tweak.

Platform BoP changes differ from the standard BoP changes that have been made at various points throughout the season. A platform change means all cars running to the same ruleset will receive an identical adjustment, rather than an individual tweak.

This type of change has been introduced this season to coincide with the first wave of LMDh prototypes joining the championship. It is in place to create an even playing field for the LMDh and LMH cars and reduce the temptation to sandbag. While helpful, Lotterer doesn’t believe this adjustment will make an enormous difference in terms of outright performance.

“It will bring us a little closer, but it’s not much — maybe one-tenth with those kilos. It’s hard to predict,” he said. “This is the first time on track here for us with the car, so we have no historical data to pull from. We are just hoping to do better than Fuji.”

Porsche is focusing its development efforts on reliability to bolster its prospects in the endurance rounds. Motorsport Images

What may prove a significant difference, however, is Porsche’s raft of upgrades for the 2024 season. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s managing director Jonathan Diuguid told RACER the planned improvements are all reliability-focused and should improve its chances in the longer races.

“We adhere to a very clearly defined process,” he explained. “All of the updates we are requesting and discussing with the FIA, ACO and IMSA are for reliability. After running the car for a year we have exposed things we didn’t see in testing and our goal is to have reliable cars that can perform at the highest level at longer races like Le Mans. And Le Mans showed we weren’t prepared for that.

“We aren’t focusing on performance, we are focused on things like driver cooling and we have had driveline issues we are trying to address. We are also working on updates to components on the hybrid system that we are working on with our partners at Bosch. They are bringing quite a big update for the MGU that every LMDh car will get.

“It’s improving those areas that have taken us out of races or severely reduced our performance.”

Leaving reliability to one side, Year 1 of the 963’s life in the WEC its outright performance hasn’t been strong enough to allow it to gun for wins consistently. Despite this, Diuguid reiterated that Porsche hasn’t been pushing the rule-makers for permission to make performance upgrades, due to the BoP system and defined performance window that the category and its ruleset are governed by. The 963 has shown race-winning potential in IMSA’s GTP class, winning three races during its debut season.

“I think the ruleset is clearly defined with what the performance target for the LMDh cars has been,” he said. “The targets, whether that’s testing in the wind tunnel or the minimum weight, have been met, so our focus has been on what we can control. We are involved in discussions, like all manufacturers are, on the BoP process and those working groups have been fruitful.

“Hence our focus is reliability,” he continued. “The process is you bring a request, a justification as to why you need the request, either explaining your failure or showing the issues you’ve had. It’s an open dialogue and a process that every manufacturer goes through.

“It’s difficult but it’s up to the sanctioning bodies to determine what they feel is a performance upgrade and what isn’t. It’s not an argument, it’s a presentation of what we want to change. It’s up to them to come back and say, ‘If you want to bring this upgrade, you need to go to the wind tunnel.’ It’s been quite open.”

Over the winter, Porsche will continue to gather data and refine its package ahead of its sophomore campaign with the car. It has tests scheduled for multiple key circuits, including Qatar and Daytona.

Porsche No. 7 leads Petit Le Mans – and championship race – after first quarter

With two and half hours of the 10-hour race complete, Matt Campbell leads Motul Petit Le Mans for Porsche Penske Motorsports while two of their IMSA GTP championship rivals have done significant self-inflicted damage to their title hopes. In pit …

In pit stops during a full-course caution, Alexander Sims in the No. 31 Whelen Engineering Cadillac Racing V-Series.R — which started the weekend leading the points — left the pits in first, but started to run the red light at pit exit. Realizing his mistake, he stopped, but Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 was also about to run the red light and hit the back of the Cadillac. Both cars needing new bodywork was only the beginning of their problems, as each received a stop-plus-60-second-hold penalty for running the light at pit-out. In addition, the BMW also had to serve a drive-through for incident responsibility.

As a result, the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport would be in control of the championship if they were running better than their current fifth place. As they run, Campbell and Felipe Nasr would win the championship. The points as they ran at quarter-time: No. 7 PPM Porsche, 2761; No. 10 WTRAndretti Acura, 2752; No. 31 Whelen Cadillac, 2713.

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The cause of the full-course caution also hurt Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian’s chances in the race, and removed any hope for Paul Miller Racing to get the championship trifecta in GTD. Corey Lewis in the No. 1 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 was behind Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 MSR Acura when Blomqvist had to check up for an LMP2 car. Lewis made contact with the Acura, sending it into a tank-slapper, and then went to the Acura’s left as Blomqvist was trying to recover, whereupon the swaying Acura knocked the BMW off track and into the tires. It’s currently behind the wall undergoing repairs, while the MSR Acura needed a minor suspension repair and is a lap down. Paul Miller Racing had clinched the GTD championship and Sprint title, but was hoping to secure the Michelin Endurance Cup title as well.

Campbell led Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, with Mike Rockenfeller running third in the JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963. Marco Wittmann was fourth in the No. 24 BMW, with Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 WTRAndretti Acura in fifth.

PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports’ No. 52 ORECA leads in LMP2 with Alex Quinn at the wheel. If their lead holds up, it would give Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin the title. Keating had a spin in the first hour, but had enough of a lead that he recovered and continued without losing a position. George Kurtz runs second in the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA, with Steven Thomas third for TDS Racing in the No. 11.

Bijoy Garg leads LMP3 in the No. 30 Jr III Ligier, pursued by Anthony Mantella (No. 17 AWA Duqueine) and Josh Burdon (No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier.

WeatherTech Racing was at the head of the GTD PRO field, Jules Gounon at the wheel of the No. 79 Mercedes AMG. Kevin Estre had the Pfaff Motorsports No. 9 Porsche 911 GT3 R in second, and Kyle Kirkwood was third in the No. 14 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3 that Jack Hawksworth put on pole. Jordan Taylor has the No. 3 Corvette Racing C8.R in fourth.

The No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG was the next car in the GT line, leading GTD at the hands of Russell Ward. Patrick Liddy had the No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by US RaceTronics Lamborghini Huracán in second, followed by Kenton Koch in the No. 32 Korthoff/Preston Mercedes AMG. Frankie Montecalvo (No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus) and Robby Foley (No. 96 Turner Motorsport BMW M4) completed the top five in GTD. The No. 83 Iron Dames Lamborghini that Doriane Pin pushed to the front of the GT field early in the race suffered a suspension failure and is seven laps down on the GTD leaders.

Nearly half of the laps in the first quarter of the race were run under four full-course caution, and several drivers have criticized the driving standards in the race so far.

Penske Porsches 1-2 in second IMSA practice at Indy

Former Pfaff Motorsport co-drivers and reigning GTD PRO champs Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet put on battle for supremacy within both the Porsche Penske Motorsport squad and overall as the team’s two 963s went one-two in the second practice …

Campbell came out on top in the No. 7 963, posting a 1m14.085s time as he went under the session-ending checker to best Jaminet in the No. 6 by 0.185s. They had traded fast laps for the final eight minutes of the session in what was perhaps a preview of qualifying later today. The two Porsches were followed by the pair of BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8s, Philipp Eng coming out on top of Nick Yelloly in the intra-squad rivalry. Eng had a 1m14.550s lap in the No, 24, only 0.012s better than Yelloly in the No. 25.

Sebastien Bourdais was fifth for Cadillac Racing in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing V-Series.R, and Tom Blomqvist made Meyer Shank Racing the better of the two Acura squads in sixth. The top nine GTP cars were within a second, with only the No. 5 JDC-Miller Motorsports Porsche 963 outside that delta.

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The times for both the GTP cars and GTD PRO teams tumbled in the final 15 minutes as the two classes were alone on track, and Porsche ended up on top of GTD PRO as well with Klaus Bachler’s 1m22.905s lap in the No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports 911 GT3 R. Jules Gounon saved his best for last, pushing the No. 79 WeatherTech Racing Mercedes AMG to second in PRO with a 1m23.168s on his final lap. Jack Hawksworth, who was quickest in yesterday’s first practice, was third, just over half a second back of Bachler.

Mikkel Jensen once again was quickest in LMP2, piloting the No. 11 TDS Racing ORECA to a 1m16.758s to better Ben Hanley in the No. 04 Crowdstrike Racing by APR ORECA by 0.065s. Ryan Dalziel was third for Era Motorsport with a 1m17.002s.

The Era Motorsport ORECA was one of the cars involved in one of three incidents that interrupted the session. Dwight Merriman was at the wheel of the No. 18 when Dennis Andersen in the No. 20 High Class Racing ORECA LMP2 plowed into him in the brake zone for Turn 1. Other red flags were for Louis Deletraz spinning the No. 8 Tower Motorsports ORECA LMP2 off Cours at the exit of Turn 1 and for Orey Fidani ending up in the gravel in Turn 4 in the No. 13 AWA Duqueine LMP3, just as the time for the Pro-Am classes to be on track ended.

Before Fidani’s spin, though, his co-driver Matthew Bell turned the quickest lap for the LMP3 class with a 1m20.840s in the No. 13. Dakota Dickerson was second quickest in the No. 54 MLT Motorsports Ligier, but only by 0.003s. Bijoy Garg was third in the No. 29 Jr III Racing Ligier at 1m20.885s.

Loris Spinelli bettered his GTD position by one from yesterday’s session, topping the class with a 1m23.0125s lap in the No. 78 Forte Racing Powered by US RaceTronics Lamborghini Huracán and splitting the top two in GTD PRO. Mikael Grenier was second in the No. 32 Korthoff/Preston Motorsports Mercedes AMG, 0.459s off Spinelli, while Kay van Berlo was third in the No. 91 Kellymoss with Riley Porsche 911 GT3 R at 1m23.826s. Philip Ellis (No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes AMG) and Bill Auberlen (No. 97 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3) completed the top 5 in GTD.

UP NEXT: Qualifying, beginning at 1 p.m. ET, broadcast live on IMSA.tv.

RESULTS

Campbell and Nasr win for Porsche at Road America

What could have been an interesting battle turned into a dominant display for Porsche Penske Motorsports in the IMSA Sportscar Weekend at Road America as several contenders caused their own woes, some of them well before the green flag waved. Matt …

Matt Campbell and Felipe Nasr started on pole in their No. 7 Porsche 963 thanks to the No. 31 Cadillac Racing V-Series.R that had qualified first having a crash in the warmup. From there they were never headed and led the entire race, which was green for 2h18m after one early full-course caution.

A late-race charge by Tom Blomqvist looked like it might thwart them, but Nasr survived to take the No. 7’s first GTP victory in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Campbell and Nasr became the sixth different GTP winners in seven races.

“I’m just happy that everything finally came together this weekend,” said Nasr. “We’ve been close several times — the speed was there, just a couple of reliability issues along the year. But the whole weekend I felt was felt like we’ve done a great job all around to set up for the race. Matt did a great qualifying, maximizing the package and getting up front in the race and just looking after his tires looking after his pace. He’s done a great job all weekend, to be honest. It’s a big relief for the whole team because I know how much hard work has put on that 7 crew. So I’m very proud of everybody.”

Campbell was able to put a bit of a gap on the field and looked fairly comfortable out front in the first stint, and Nasr had no issues maintaining that gap and controlling the race when he got into the car at the first pit stop.

“I feel like our pace was really really good,” declared Campbell. “I was looking after the tire as well and I was just quite comfortable out in front, slowly chipping away. I think we got really lucky with traffic; that’s why the gap looked so big at times because even I was surprised just how easy it was to get through. So for sure it made our race, especially at the start, quite a lot easier.”

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Blomqvist was making a hard charge in the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 he shares with Colin Braun, and closed the gap to under two seconds. That was as close as he would get to Nasr, however, and a couple of bad breaks in traffic in the final laps left the gap at 4.635s and the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park winners had to settle for second.

“What hurt us the most was the 01 [Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac] looked like it was struggling a bit and I was stuck behind it for probably a little bit too too long,” explained Blomqvist. “It was difficult to pass if you don’t find an opportunity in traffic. Thankfully, I got one halfway through that first stint and then the car was working really well.

“Traffic always ebbs and flows and I guess he got a bit more fortunate than I did towards last five laps or so of the race. Obviously it’s one thing getting close, but passing is a completely different matter. But I’m really happy with the job our boys did today — good execution, clean stops and a bit of fortune fell away as well.”

The other big winners of the weekend, despite the fact that Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuqerque finished a distant third in the No. 10 Acura, were Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport. With the woes for Action Express Racing and the No. 25 BMW, they emerged with the championship lead, despite the fact that they are still looking for their first victory. Albuquerque and Taylor lead Alexander Sims and Pipo Derani by 14 points, 2171 to 2157.

Derani had qualified the No. 31 on pole for AXR, but Alexander Sims lost the car in the morning warmup. The AXR crew went to work, completing a swap of gearbox, rear suspension, hybrid components, undertray and rear bodywork and wing in 90 minutes and get the car to grid before the cars rolled off. That was critical, as it allowed Derani to start at the back of the GTP field rather than starting from pit lane and also having to serve a drive-through. While ultimately the team didn’t rediscover the pace it had all weekend, a sixth-place finish kept the day from being a complete disaster for the team that had been leading the championship.

It was disaster, however, for BMW. While the two BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8s hadn’t shown top-flight pace at Road America, Connor De Phillippi was starting the car fourth with the No. 31 at the back. However, De Phillippi spun on the first pace lap, and had to be fished out of the gravel. Now starting at the back, De Phillippi worked his way through the GT field in two laps, but flew off at The Kink and pancaked the wall.

De Phillipi’s spin had cause the first lap after the clock started to be a third pace lap, and now he had brought another full-course caution, the only two cautions of the race. The car came back to the pits on a flatbed, and the crew got the car back out with Nick Yelloly at the wheel, but it only made two more laps before Yelloly pulled off track. The No. 24 BMW had a rough day as well, coasting to stop before refiring and making it back to the pits, where it stayed for the duration.

The No. 01 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande had shown good pace all weekend and started second, but they were never really a factor in the race and finished fourth. JDC-Miller Motorsports looks to be getting a handle on their Porsche 963 in their fourth race with the car, and Mike Rockenfeller and Tijmen van der Helm finished fifth.

PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports, ORECA ruled LMP2 with Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin.

Ben Keating and Paul-Loup Chatin came away with the first LMP2 victory of the year for the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA after their chief competitors in the championship struck trouble.

“We chose not to test here to save the money and the time — that really put us behind this weekend,” related Keating. “Any data we’ve had in the last five or six years is useless on a new surface. It’s basically a brand-new track and a lot of our competitors have tested here for a couple of days. We made big gains every time we went out, but really felt like we were behind even throughout the race.

“I had a really good start. I guess I would say I didn’t make the mistakes that the other guys I was around were making and I was able to get up to the front courtesy of their mistakes. And our car was better in the race than it was in qualifying. I think I did a lap that was pretty close to my qualifying lap when I was full of fuel on old tires. It was really nice to drive in the race and I still felt like I was learning at the end. Our big competitors each had problems whether it was penalties or punctures, so it’s a really great day for the championship.”

Giedo van der Garde and Jon Falb were second in the No. 35 TDS Racing ORECA, followed by Mikkel Jensen and Steven Thomas in the No. 11 TDS Racing entry. Polesitters George Kurtz and Ben Hanley had a late-race puncture and other issues that left them last in the seven-car field. Keating and Chatin now lead the LMP2 points by 45, followed by Jensen and Thomas, with Hanley and Kurtz another 52 points back.

A come-from-behind effort netted Gar Robinson and Josh Burdon the LMP3 class win.

The No. 33 Sean Creech Motorsports Ligier led most of the LMP3 race from pole, first with Nico Pino and then Joao Barbosa. But Josh Burdon in the No. 74 Riley Motorsports Ligier chased Barbosa down and took over the lead with 22 minutes to keep an unbeaten record for the team and for co-driver Gar Robinson. Robinson had been partnering with Felipe Fraga for the sprint races, but Fraga had a commitment elsewhere so the team’s endurance driver stepped in.

“We had a very raceable car,” declared Burdon. “The traffic and the fluctuations in lap time and the risk to reward and how you had to drive the race, I feel allowed me to attack a little bit harder and feel a little bit more confident to take a little bit more risk than others. So I think we did have a bit of a pace advantage. But the majority of it over the 33 was in traffic and just a little bit of efficiency — and maybe they didn’t mow the grass and I did three times, so I was pushing quite hard!”

Pino and Barbosa ended up second with Matthew Bell and Orey Fidani finishing third in the No. 13 AWA Racing Duqueine. Robinson now has a massive 251 points gap to Bell and Fidani in the championship.

RESULTS

Porsche Penske to protest Watkins Glen penalty

BMW was handed the victory in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen on Sunday night after the skid block on the apparently-victorious No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 was found to be out of tolerance, and the car driven by Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet was moved to the rear of the GTP class. However, PPM isn’t ready to concede, and BMW isn’t celebrating yet – despite Twitter feeds to the contrary.

PPM has stated it will protest the ruling from IMSA that the wood skid block under the car was out of tolerance in post-race inspection. IMSA specifies a minimum thickness in order to keep teams from running the cars too low – if the skid block is worn too thin, the assumption is that the car was bottoming out too much.

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“Following post-race inspection at Watkins Glen International, IMSA has penalized the No. 6 entry in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen citing that the front skid wear of the No. 6 Porsche 963 was less than one millimeter outside the legal tolerance,” Porsche Penske Motorsport said in a statement. “The rear skid wear was noted to be well within the legal tolerance. Porsche Penske Motorsport plans to collect all of the data and follow the protest procedures.”

Jaminet made a dramatic late-race pass on Connor De Phillippi in traffic to initially claim the victory for the No. 6, while De Phillippi and Nick Yelloly in the No. 25 BMW M Team RLL M Hybrid V8 believed they had been denied the marque’s first GTP victory. However, five hours after the checkered flag, IMSA announced that the No. 6 963 had failed post-race technical inspection and the BMW was promoted to first.

If PPM’s protest is denied, it will have a significant affect on the championship, as it represents a 120-point swing for the No. 6 team. The No. 31 Action Express Cadillac squad with Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims would move back into first in the championship, with the No. 25 in second.

Sources at BMW, however, indicate that they believe PPM will come well armed with data to the protest, and aren’t quite ready to celebrate the marque’s first GTP win until the protest has been settled. The IMSA sporting regulations do not give a specific time period for when such a protest must be decided.

In the meantime, though, a BMW victory means that in the span of only five races, each of the four manufacturers participating in GTP has won this season – a somewhat remarkable statistic given the state of BMW and Porsche at the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, won by Acura.