Nasr: Porsche Has to “Maximize” Points at Road America

Photo: Porsche

Felipe Nasr believes that Porsche Penske Motorsport needs to “maximize” their points lead heading into this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Road America, with only three races remaining to crown this year’s GTP champion.

Nasr and co-driver Dane Cameron, who won last time out at the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen, head into Sunday’s two-hour and 40-minute race in Wisconsin with a 93-point lead over Chip Ganassi Racing’s Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais, with the sister No. 6 Porsche 963 of Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy not far behind in third.

The Brazilian and then co-driver Matt Campbell scored their first victories with the team last year at Road America, in what Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle described as a ‘turning point’ in the overall factory LMDh program.

Porsche Penske has since gone on to win the Rolex 24 at Daytona, with Nasr, Cameron, Campbell and Josef Newgarden, the FIA World Endurance Championship season-opening Qatar 1812km and also continues to lead the WEC points standings.

Nasr said accumulating points at Road America, a track that typically suits the Porsche, could be pivotal for October’s title-decider at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.

“Anything we can get extra, for sure, coming to the last race, it can always be dicey at Road Atlanta as we know,” he said.

“It’s a track that has a lot more challenging ingredients. It’s maybe not the favorite of our package. But for sure Road America, we have to maximize what we have.

“We know we had a competitive car last year. There have been improvements all around and I know competitors have been improving as well.

“Anything we can get extra, a good weekend all around, points in qualifying and good points in the race, [would be good] to take over to Indianapolis next.”

Nasr and Cameron have only finished off the podium once this year, at Detroit, in what has proven to be an ultra-consistent season for the driver pairing.

“The focus isn’t any different to any previous event we’ve had,” said Nasr. “I feel like Dane and myself, we’ve been really optimizing the package. The whole team has given us a great car every round.

“I think it was only Detroit that we hadn’t been on the podium due to a puncture I had in the car. I did fight my way back but only got a fourth place.

“We’ve had a fourth place as our worst result until now in the season. We’ve got to continue pushing in every aspect.

“We understand what it takes to be competitive at Road America. Let’s go for it.”

Jaminet, who sits 132 points from the lead with co-driver Tandy, but only 39 from van der Zande and Bourdais, indicated that the No. 6 Porsche could play a supporting role to ensure both the driver and manufacturer titles go the way of the German brand.

“At the end, we try to do the best we can and then we try to manage the rest, seeing where the positions are,” said Jaminet.

“If we have to support, we do. I think this what we’ve tried to do already in previous events.

“Obviously if we can get a win, we do as well. I think fighting for other positions, then it also makes sense that Car 7 finishes in front and increased their lead.

“I think this is at least pretty clear from my side. We try to win races but if not, then for sure we try to support Car 7 already.”

Kuratle, meanwhile, refuted that Porsche is holding a preference with one car over another in the title race.

“They’re very, very close together in points,” he said. “There’s around only 120 points apart, so it’s very, very close. There’s no preferred car or driver crew or anything like this.”

Jaminet, meanwhile, is still hopeful that he and Tandy could end up as champions, if the cards play out.

“At the end of the day, there’s still one-third of the championship so a lot of things can still happen,” he said.

“Two out of these three races are long ones.

“We are for sure in the hunt because if anything goes wrong with Car 7, then we will be right back there. But there’s also a couple of other cars.

“Then it’s maybe going with three or four cars again to the last race with a shot of winning the championship.

“We need to maximize the chances for Porsche so we need to have strong weekends to make sure we arrive with two cars there and do the best we can.

“There’s still al lot of points on the table.”

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