Photo: Porsche
Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell will complete Porsche Penske Motorsport’s lineup for October’s Motul Petit Le Mans.
The team’s managing director Jonathan Diuguid confirmed the lineups for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season finale, which will see Estre rejoin Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy in the No. 6 Porsche 963 and Campbell back in the No. 7 with current points leaders Felipe Nasr and Dane Cameron.
Both full-time FIA World Endurance Championship pilots were part of the team’s lineup for the season-opening Rolex 24 at Daytona, with Campbell also having been in the No. 7 Porsche at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring.
Cameron and Nasr currently hold a 100-point lead in the GTP standings over Jaminet and Tandy following the No. 6 car’s win at Road America.
Two races remain in the WeatherTech Championship, with the newly expanded six-hour Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis Motor Speedway next up.
“I think in all of these championships, even the six hours or ten hour-races are sprint races now for the sports cars,” said Diuguid.
“Nobody’s conserving their equipment or doing anything. It’s more about risk management and making sure we don’t get caught up in accidents or other things like that.
“We need to be at the end of the race to be able to fight for the win and get the points, so that’s going to be our main focus, just to try and stay out of trouble and control our own destiny as much as we can.
“But it will be a push the whole time.”
Diuguid revealed that Porsche Penske was prepared to employ team orders at Road America, for the No. 7 driver pairing to extend their lead, although a late-race charge by Ricky Taylor in the No. 10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura ARX-06 dashed those plans.
“We don’t control everything,” he said. “As we looked at the points championship, we talked about team orders and everything at Road America.
“To be honest, the battle was so tight there that if we swapped the cars we probably had a chance of losing the win, which we weren’t prepared to do.
“The main focus is the manufacturers’ championship. In that regard it doesn’t matter if the 6, or the 7 or the 5 (Proton) or 85 (JDC-Miller) wins.
“In IMSA, it’s the goal to get the manufacturers’ championship.
“I think specifically in Road America, the pressure the 31 (and 10 car) were applying, there was just no opportunity to do it.
“If it was a different scenario, we likely would have. But our focus was to make sure a Porsche won the race.”
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