Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche
Felipe Nasr believes Porsche Penske Motorsport “maximized what we had” in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring after missing out on a chance to fight for victory in the Florida endurance classic.
After starting the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season off with a historic win in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Nasr and co-drivers Dane Cameron and Matt Campbell drove to a third place finish in their No. 7 Porsche 963 on Saturday, combining to lead 42 laps of the race.
While nearly all of the Porsche 963s struggled early on in the hot-and-humid daytime conditions, Nasr and Campbell both enjoyed time out front in the second half of the contest until the Brazilian was unable to mount a challenge to Sebastien Bourdais and eventual race winner Louis Deletraz in the end.
“I felt like we maximized what we had today as a package,” Nasr told Sportscar365.
“There were times in the race we looked pretty competitive, and there were times that we didn’t have enough to fight. And we need to investigate why we lost so much pace there at the end.
“I don’t know if something mechanically broke in the car, but I could feel a lot of vibration in the car and a bouncing feeling.
“So that really hurt us in the race at the end when it mattered.”
When asked to elaborate on the possible issue, Nasr described it as a ‘sensation from inside the car that didn’t feel right.’
“We need to investigate, but that’s all I know for now,” he said. “The restarts were pretty challenging, getting heat in the tires and finding the cars ahead of me and behind me.
“They had better tires than I did, I think because we we we pitted a few laps earlier than everybody. So it was going to be tricky to fight.
“The 40 [car] especially had newer tires than us and they had an amazing pace. So I want to congratulate them for the win.”
Porsche Penske managing director Jonathan Diuguid said it wasn’t immediately clear what the issue was on the No. 7 car in the closing stints.
“I talked to [Felipe] in the back of the podium there, and he just said the car was bouncing a lot, [and] felt like something was broken in the suspension,” Diuguid told Sportscar365. “So we just need to look at it. We haven’t had a chance to look at the car yet.
“I think all the all the prototype cars are ride height sensitive and Sebring is probably one of the highest places ride height wise, so I think we were missing a bit of downforce, especially on our 963.
“We always have to work on the ride quality around here. So that’s that’s something we’re focused on. But I can’t pinpoint anything in general right now.
“I think we were a lot better on our tires and tire degradation this year, which is a focal point, but we need a little bit more performance to compete with the Acuras and the Cadillacs.”
Diuguid added: “Today was one of those days where you take what comes and having a podium is something to be happy about.
“I think it’s a good sign when we’re disappointed with the podium. But I know for sure I think that was our potential today.
“And with the way the race ended and the 7 car was able to bring home some trophies, that’s always a good thing.”
Jonathan Grace contributed to this report
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