Porsche Penske “in a good spot” going into Daytona 24 Hours
Porsche Penske Motorsport believes it is “miles better” prepared for this weekend’s Daytona 24 Hours compared to last year’s inaugural race weekend for its 963 prototype.
Porsche’s factory-entered cars will start third and seventh for the IMSA SportsCar Championship opener, as it searches for its 20th overall success at the Floridan sportscar classic.
PPM’s managing director Jonathan Diuguid said: “From the team and operation side, we’re trying to improve our performance, whether it’s strategy, tire choices or operationally around the car. We focused a lot on that in the off-season.
“Our preparation level for Daytona compared to last time is miles better and significantly improved, from the parts situation to personnel, to how we show up with car prep.
“We’ve made huge strides technically and operationally, so we’re excited to start the racing season and hopefully have some success in Daytona.”
Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Nick Tandy, Mathieu Jaminet, Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor
Porsche’s stated aim for 2024 is to improve reliability in the longer-distance races, and LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle declared its pre-season testing at both Daytona and Austin’s Circuit of the Americas as “a success”.
But he also said of this weekend's Rolex 24: “I know I’m not allowed to say this, but I’ll say it anyway, we will still shit our pants regardless of how many endurance tests and checks we did! You’re never safe before a 24-hour race. That will always be the case!”
Diuguid added: “In our first management meeting of the year, Urs and myself were asked by Thomas Laudenbach [Porsche’s motorsport boss] and Roger Penske ‘what are our main concerns?’ And I stopped short of saying that we didn’t have any.
“We feel we’re in a good spot, and that we’ve done of our testing, validation and updates for reliability. Going into any 24-hour race I’m not going to stand there on the grid and say nothing ever is going to happen.
“For the things that we can control, we’ve put in significant effort to try and improve that. I feel in a much better place, especially around the hybrid components – Williams and Bosch have put in significant effort to improve those components and we’ve put significant run time on those without any issues.
“We’re a lot more confident about that and our car reliability.”
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