Dempsey-Proton Porsche Loses Fuji Class Podium

The No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR has lost its Fuji class podium following a post-race time penalty.

Matteo Cairoli, Giorgio Roda and FIA World Endurance Championship debutant Satoshi Hoshino originally finished second on the road, behind the winning Team Project 1 Porsche.

However, their car was handed a time penalty of 1 minute 16 seconds for failing to meet the minimum refueling time, dropping it to fifth in the results.

It means two Aston Martin entries have been promoted into the top three, with Jonny Adam, Charlie Eastwood and Salih Yoluc now classified second in their TF Sport Vantage, while Aston Martin Racing’s Pedro Lamy, Mathias Lauda and Paul Dalla Lana move up to third.

The WEC rules state that GTE-Am cars must be refueled for a minimum of 45 seconds, however the No. 88 car was found to have slipped under this by 2.7 seconds.

Both Dempsey-Proton Porsches were reprimanded, with the Le Mans-winning No. 77 car of Julien Andlauer, Matt Campbell and Christian Ried receiving an additional 31 seconds to its final race time.

However, its position wasn’t affected because it finished bottom of its class.

The stewards also summoned the Proton cars for offenses relating to inaccurate data logger transmissions.

Both were found to have sent “a signal that was intentionally modified” by the competitor, which altered the stated refueling time by adding two seconds to the real number achieved in the race.

No penalties were inflicted for this breach, although further investigations will be carried out ahead of next month’s WEC round at Shanghai.

AMENDED RESULT: 6 Hours of Fuji