‘A Lot of Information Sharing’ in Porsche Dual-Continent Effort

There has been ‘a lot of information sharing’ between Porsche Penske Motorsport’s teams that are competing in races on two different continents this weekend according to the manufacturer’s factory LMDh director Urs Kuratle.

Two Porsche 963s are each taking part in the third round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season at Long Beach and the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Portimao in Portugal.

Kuratle explained that the WeatherTech Championship GTP and WEC Hypercar teams operate “completely independently” but there are ways in which a double race weekend can benefit the LMDh program as a whole.

“It’s a lot of effort obviously, but it was our choice to do so,” Kuratle told Sportscar365.

“We will manage it. JD [Jonathan Diuguid, PPM managing director] and a couple of members of management are in Long Beach.

“The crews work completely independently. There are a lot of phone calls and information sharing forwards and backwards.

“We are looking for an easy race in one paddock, on one continent in one week. That would be great! But we have to wait to do that.”

Kuratle added that it’s important for Porsche team management to keep in the loop with what is going on at both Long Beach and Portimao, considering the LMDh program is still in the early stages of its racing life.

Porsche made its LMDh debut in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, while its two teams operated in different paddocks for the IMSA and WEC joint event at Sebring last month.

“We understand some of the weaknesses from the car, and it will be interesting to see how it performs at Long Beach in the States,” said Kuratle.

“And how the actions we are trying to take against the weaknesses, how they perform here in Portimao.

“Straight performance-wise, you cannot exchange a lot of data because the setups for the tracks are so different. [But] the car is still under development: it is always interesting to see how it develops over there and here.”

This weekend is one of two date clashes between the WeatherTech Championship and the WEC, which also have an overlap in July when the IMSA event at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park conflicts with the 6 Hours of Monza.

When asked if the clashing WeatherTech Championship and WEC races are a help or a hindrance, Kuratle replied: “Once it’s all set up it’s probably more of a help.

“It’s not that we only learned yesterday that we would do it like this. We knew that already in advance, so we knew that we had to prepare ourselves to do so.”

Michael Christensen, who drives the No. 5 Porsche 963 in the WEC, described the Long Beach-Portimao clash as a “unique opportunity” to gather information.

“It’s not double the amount of track time, but it’s a lot of track time,” he told Sportscar365.

“What is a little bit difficult to correlate is that it’s a street track and here it’s not at all. It’s actually very flat.

“I think in general that the more laps, the more sessions, the more competitions, the better for us. We need to learn, we need to get better and that’s the good thing.”