PPM Drivers ‘Know Expectations’ After Sebring Team Order Row

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

Penske Racing President Jonathan Diuguid said that all Porsche Penske Motorsport drivers ‘understand the expectations’ going forward regarding team orders between the two factory Porsche 963s following a tense conclusion and post-race press conference to last month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.

While Porsche Penske celebrated a dominant 1-2 finish, it came amid allegations from No. 6 driver Kevin Estre that teammate Felipe Nasr, in the No. 7 Porsche, did not respect the call to stay behind the Frenchman in the final hour of the race.

The move by Nasr on Estre with 1 hour and four minutes to go in the Florida endurance classic followed an enforced swap of positions between the two cars just seven minutes earlier.

Speaking to invited journalists in a Porsche-hosted media call on Thursday, Diuguid said the situation has been resolved and that there are “no hard feelings between anyone” heading into next weekend’s third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season.

“The one thing I’ll say is that we talked about it as a group,” he said. “Felipe and Kevin have talked about it, the team has talked about it in general.

“Everybody understands what the expectations are going forward and how we’re going to be moving forward.

“There’s no hard feelings between anybody. There was some, call it drama, at the end of the race, whatever you want to describe it.

“But the reality is that our two cars dominated the race and we finished 1-2.

“That’s what we wanted to focus on and I can tell you everybody approached those meetings with the right the mindset and I’m looking forward to hitting the race track again in Long Beach.”

Diuguid said the details on the post-race meetings unfolded between all drivers, engineers, strategists and other staff, in going through the analysis are “not terribly important.”

“The one thing I will say is that we looked at all levels of the team, from how the drivers interacted to how Travis [Law, competition director/No. 7 race strategist] and I interacted, to how the management staff interacted with managing the situation,” he said.

“We talked about things that we thought we did well and we talked about things that we didn’t think we did so well.

“Ultimately we did get all the drivers together and openly talked about the mis-steps or mistakes or however you want to analyze it, and set the expectation going forward.

“Everybody left with a common understanding and also a common goal. There’s no existing hard feelings or anything like that.”

Diuguid: ‘Team Orders is Something That’s Not Going to Go Away’

When asked if Porsche Penske is prepared to deploy team orders again, as early as next weekend’s Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach, Diuguid said: “absolutely.”

He added: “I think every single manufacturer at the Sebring 12 Hours employed team orders.

“Cadillac swapped positions between the 10 and the 31 at the end of the race.

“BMWs switched positions on track and in pit lane; Acura switched positions on track and in pit lane.

“It’s part of the sport and it’s part of being successful with the pit lane structures that we race in IMSA and everything like that.

“In the end, our goal is to make sure Porsche ends up first and we’re going to do whatever it takes to do that.

“It’s something that’s been part of sports car racing and racing in general and it’s something that’s not going to go away.

“I hope to be in that position in Long Beach again where we’re talking again which one of the PPM cars is going to finish first.”

Separating Pit Boxes “Technically Not Feasible” in GTP Era

Diuguid explained splitting up the pit boxes between the Nos. 6 and 7 cars, something Team Penske did when it ran Acura’s factory DPi program, is not technically possible given the ramped up technical nature of operating LMDh cars.

This was a sticking point, particularly during the Sebring race, as the sister car would get boxed in, and struggle to re-take the lead on pit road.

“You’re still allowed to separate your pit boxes,” said Diuguid. “You have to do it for the entire season, so you can’t pick and choose which race you’re going to do it at.

“You have to submit to IMSA and say, ‘We want to pit our cars as a team or we want to pit our cars separate.

“In the PPM program, it’s always been the cars have pitted together. It was in the previous DPi formula that they were separated for similar reasons.

“The running infrastructure requirements for operating a LMDh car is significantly higher.

“Whether that’s network infrastructure, intercoms, data transfer, everything like that, separating the pit boxes with that communication and structure we have at the race track don’t really permit us to do that.

“It would increase the number of people we would have to bring. It would increase the cost of equipment and cost of servers and everything like that.

“It’s not really technically feasible.

“IMSA’s responded from the feedback of the teams. We’re not allowed to, once the car stops in the pit box, you can move the front axle to the edge of the pit box and things like that to help alleviate the concerns and issues.

“The pit boxes in Long Beach will be a little bit bigger than what we’ve had at places like Sebring, where we are a little bit limited.

“It will help there but it will still be something that teams will be talking about.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John