Jaminet “Very Lucky” After Late-Race Slow Puncture

Photo: Rick Dole/IMSA

Mathieu Jaminet was “very lucky” to bring the No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 to victory in Sunday’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen after it was revealed post-race that he was nursing a slow tire puncture in the closing laps.

Jaminet and co-driver Nick Tandy scored their second IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory of the season in dramatic fashion, with the Frenchman grabbing the lead from the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Connor De Phillippi with six minutes to go through traffic.

A heavy accident by the No. 95 Turner Motorsport BMW M4 GT3 of Bill Auberlen, resulted in a full course caution just two minutes later, which saw the race end under yellow.

It proved to be a turn of fortunes for the No. 6 Porsche, which had a slow puncture on the left-rear tire according to Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid.

“The final sprint was even more gripping than it looked from the outside because we had a slow puncture on the rear left tire,” he said.

“We were very lucky that we made it to the finish line in one piece.”

Porsche LMDh factory motorsports director Urs Kuratle added that a further diagnosis still needed to be done after post-race technical inspection to determine the extent of the “pressure drop.”

“It would be interesting to see what comes out after tech,” Kuratle told Sportscar365.

“We had a little rear-left pressure drop. I wouldn’t call it a puncture. But just after he overtook the BMW, with the yellow, the pressure dropped anyway.”

Kuratle confirmed that Jaminet was on Michelin’s Soft High Temperature compound for the final stint, compared to the No. 25 BMW, which opted for the Medium High Temperature.

“It was a gamble, a bit,” he said. “But we had it. That was cool.

“This is something we really have to analyze with the data over the next couple of days.

“I’m not sure it was the only key [to victory]. It was a bit of a gamble whether it worked or not, but we believed it was a little bit better.

“Whether that was really the case we have to find out once we look a bit deeper into the data. It definitely was not worse.

“It was a bit of a risk about how long the SHT would last in those high track temperatures. We would have favored the track temperatures decreasing, but they didn’t.

“It worked out well, so that’s OK.”

Tandy, meanwhile, said he was “shocked” by the pace of the No. 25 BMW, particularly on its second-to-last stint, where De Phillippi managed to pull a significant gap over the Englishman.

It’s unclear if the BMW was utilizing the SHT during that period.

“We had two options on tires,” Tandy said. “Since yesterday we had the soft option on tires. The relative pace of the cars changed and it looked like the warmup of one car was particularly good.

“This could have changed how the race structure went in the end.

“Looking at the potential for the other car being on a different tire, we then realized that the back-end of the stint could be where we could have an advantage.

“When the 25 [car] came in early, obviously to cover against a yellow, we opted to sail along.

“The tires were crying out at that point but the only kind of thing we had in the box was to try to shorten our last stint and our tire advantage and give [Mathieu] the best shot possible.

“That’s what happened. We had a great strategy, great pit stops all day long, and gave him the tools to go do a job and he came through in the end.

“The pace with our car in the end was superior and we managed to bag another win.”

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

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