Estre: Le Mans Runner-Up Finish “Good Surprise” for Porsche

Kevin Estre described Porsche Penske Motorsport’s second place finish in the 24 Hours of Le Mans as “a good surprise,” as the Frenchman felt skeptical about the team’s ability to prevent a Ferrari podium lockout for much of the race.

Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell finished the 93rd running of the French endurance classic behind the winning No. 83 Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson, but ahead of both the No. 51 and No. 50 cars from the Prancing Horse.

Although the No. 5 Porsche led the opening hour with Julien Andlauer at the wheel, as the race progressed it became clear that the sister No. 6 machine was the only one out of the three works-entered 963s that would be able to pose a challenge to Ferrari.

Notably, Vanthoor led outright at halfway before the one and only safety car reset the race overnight.

The three 499Ps ran in 1-2-3 formation going into the final six hours of the race before the No. 6 Porsche was able to split them and grab the podium, something Estre said the team can be “proud” of.

“It’s a good surprise to be second because for a long time we thought it’s going to be a Ferrari 1-2-3,” said Estre.

“So we can be proud to be between them because they were quicker. The three of them were quicker than us. And in the end, we made it.”

When asked what ultimately made the difference in the fight for podium positions towards the end of the race, Estre replied: “Well, I think they had issues.

“I think they probably did a mistake on strategy. We chose to do the double and to push like hell.

“They chose to go for a triple stint and maybe track position, but in the end, their tire degradation was higher than what they expected, probably.”

Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid described the race as “pretty frantic,” but praised the reliability of the three Multimatic-chassised LMDh challengers.

“There were stages of the race where I thought we were going to win, stages where I thought we were going to finish last and stages where we were going to podium,” said Diuguid.

“It just kind of transitioned throughout the day, temperature-driven.

“But the thing is, our cars ran flawlessly all day. We didn’t have a single technical issue that put us on the back foot or made us spend any time in pit lane. Most of the drivers did a good job.

“The No. 6 crew made zero mistakes, zero penalties, zero off-track incidents. And that’s what put them in position to be fighting there at the end.”

The No. 6 car started the race from the back of the Hypercar grid after it was thrown out of first qualifying on Wednesday for a minimum weight infraction.

However, Estre, who took the start, made rapid progress through the pack in the early stages of the race, gaining seven positions on the first lap and running fifth by the end of the opening hour.

“It was fun,” Estre said.

“It was a lot of fun, actually. I don’t know, I felt good.

“The car was feeling well and I think I maybe I had a little [angel] over the car which gave me the right momentum every time.

“I took the right decisions in traffic, went to the right side when I had to go to the right side. Sometimes, some little magic happens in racing and I’m happy.”

John Dagys contributed to this report