Van der Zande Feels Porsche “Didn’t Show Anything Yet”

Renger van der Zande believes that Porsche has yet to show its hand in the build-up to the Rolex 24 at Daytona, rebuffing suggestions that Cadillac enters the race as favorite.

Last Sunday, Cadillac swept the front row in qualifying for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship curtain-raiser, as Pipo Derani grabbed pole in the No. 31 Action Express Racing V-Series.R ahead of Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 01 Chip Ganassi Racing car.

Since then, all four of this week’s practice sessions have been led by Cadillac, with AXR and Ganassi topping two sessions each.

But van der Zande, who shares the Ganassi-run car with Bourdais, Scott Dixon and Alex Palou, instead feels that Porsche could be the manufacturer to watch.

The two Penske-run factory Porsche 963s qualified third and seventh.

“If you look at the Penske Porsches, they didn’t show anything yet,” van der Zande told Sportscar365. “And the Proton [Competition] Porsche did an amazing long run, so I guess Penske also has something in the pocket. 

“They are surprisingly [far] behind us. If you look at the [BoP] numbers, it would make sense that they would be faster than they have shown so far.

“I don’t know what they are doing, but what we are doing seems to be pretty good. But we’ll see. Qualifying doesn’t really show anything.”

Van der Zande’s remarks were put to Porsche’s Nick Tandy, who said he still feels Cadillac holds the edge, with the caveat that each manufacturer’s chances may be impacted by which Michelin tire compound ends up being the most favored in the race.

“If you want to keep a full allocation of both the soft and the medium for the race, it limits you on what you can use during the actual testing,” the Briton told Sportscar365.

“In that regard, what you can learn from practice pace is limited. I think we saw more last week, to be honest. I still think that Cadillac looks the strongest, generally. 

“We’ve tried to keep our options as much as possible, while hoping some of the others have tried to set the car up [by using more of] their favored tyre.

“I think it’s close. We’re not sitting here saying we are the fastest, but I think we have a chance, which is all you can ask for.”

Asked for his thoughts on the remaining GTP manufacturers, Tandy went on to describe Porsche’s fellow German manufacturer BMW as a “dark horse” while also not discounting the chances of Acura, which had the toughest qualifying of the four.

“We saw BMW do a long run this week, which looked decent,” he said. “They are like us, they can be fast and struggle a bit more on the tire deg than the Caddy and the Acura. 

“We know from past years the Acura will be strong. It’s normally good on long run pace, but they have been given weight, which won’t help them. It might have lost their edge on lap time, but they will be good.”

Van der Zande also said he believes that Acura could have an ace up its sleeve in terms of fuel consumption.

“With the fuel tank, the Acura has traditionally managed to do more laps than us on the long runs,” said the Dutch driver. “And somehow IMSA gave them a bigger tank for this race, which I was very surprised about. 

“They seem to be managing the fuel consumption very well, but they don’t show it until they need it. Again, we’ll see.”

However, Louis Deletraz, who qualified the No. 40 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura in fifth, downplayed suggestions that the ARX-06 would have any advantage.

“I don’t believe you can do much on fuel, because everyone has their energy allocation and everyone is more or less the same,” Deletraz told Sportscar365. 

“Historically we are good on long runs, and the Acura has less deg than the others. I hope it’s the same [this year], but I can’t tell you until we’ve done a double stint!”