Estre: Porsche Put Toyota “In The Corner” to Take Risks

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Kevin Estre believes that the strength and consistency of their No. 6 Penske Porsche 963 forced title contender Toyota to take risks in Sunday’s 6 Hours of Fuji, which ultimately came back to bite the Japanese manufacturer while on home soil.

Estre and co-drivers Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer picked up their second FIA World Endurance Championship victory of the season, extending the lead in the drivers’ world championship to nearly insurmountable 35-point advantage with one race to go.

It came in an action-packed and attrition-filled contest that saw the title rival No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi crash out with less than 90 minutes to go after making contact with the sister No. 5 Porsche of Matt Campbell.

The No. 8 Toyota, meanwhile, was relegated to a tenth place finish after a late-race drive-through penalty for not respecting blue flags.

AF Corse’s championship-contending No. 50 Ferrari 499P, meanwhile, finished ninth after struggling for pace, particularly in the second half of the race.

“You cannot count on the misfortune from the others,” said Estre.

“I think Ferrari was on the back foot this weekend; they were not as fast as they probably could have been.

“Toyota, I think, tried a lot of stuff.

“They went on a very, very aggressive, very different strategy with two-and-a-half hours to go with [Nyck] de Vries staying in for a double [stint], very short stints, short fuel, which took an advantage on us.

“But then with the safety car, I think they lost a lot of track position because of that and they couldn’t come back. Then you’re in a pack and you take more risks.

“It’s good. We put them in this corner. We put ourselves in a position to always be in front and for them to try something to beat us.

“Today they tried and it beat them. I think this was a key. They’ve been unlucky because I think we did a good job to bring them into this position.

“This is what we’ve done very well this year as a team.”

Vanthoor, who took the start, led through the majority of his double stint before handing the car off to Lotterer in the third hour.

“We had a good car in the race, for sure,” said the Belgian. “Luckily I could get past the two Toyotas quickly, which was quite important for our championship battle.

“Then we just had a good car and a good strategy and could get up to the lead.

“The whole race, from Kevin and Andre’s point of view, the mechanics, the pit stop, the strategy, because everybody was throwing stuff at us strategy-wise and we had to react with everything.

“In the end, it was literally a perfect day.”

Lottterer briefly lost the lead to the No. 50 Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen, who capitalized by pitting during the race’s first virtual safety car period, but the German driver ultimately got by Ferrari during his stint to extend the advantage.

“The great thing about this team and us is that we manage to do the best with what gets thrown at us,” said Lotterer.

“Our engineer and everyone is well prepared with all the scenarios to pick the right one.

“We’ve seen this throughout the season, even when we had to fight back from the back. This just shows our strength.

“And when you have a good car you can win as well.”

Estre, Vanthoor, Lotterer on Brink of World Championship Title

The No. 6 Porsche crew head into November’s season-ending 8 Hours of Bahrain needing to only score an eighth place finish or higher in order to walk away as world champions.

The trio’s worst finish of the season was a sixth place result at Circuit of The Americas earlier this month.

“It’s mathematics,” Estre said. “You can never be confident because if we have a bad race and the others have a perfect race, as it was the case now, they can win.

“We can be confident that if we keep doing what we’ve been doing the whole year, we have a very good shot and we don’t need to risk anything.

“We just need to do our things while the others really have to risk a lot.

“We are for sure in a very good position but as long as mathematics can bring the championship to the others, I think you still have to keep your foot on the ground.

“Last year in Bahrain was a tough race for us. I think we will be in a better place this year.

“We’ll try to do as we did this year, a very solid job, not taking crazy risks as some others are doing to make sure we score some points and try to get a good car underneath us.”

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