“Every Lap Counts” for Proton in First Race With Porsche 963

Proton Competition is aiming to “just do all the laps” on its first race outing with the Porsche 963 in this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship round at Monza.

The German squad is making its top-category debut in the six-hour race with a customer LMDh car driven by Harry Tincknell, Neel Jani and Gianmaria Bruni.

Proton only received the new vehicle last week, after a shakedown completed by Kevin Estre at Porsche’s Weissach facility followed by a handover seven days ago.

Tinckell said that the goal this weekend is to accrue as much mileage as possible considering there hasn’t been enough time for Proton to do its own testing beforehand.

“Every lap counts,” he told Sportscar365. “Ultimately, we’ve got three races this year to build a foundation for next year and the years to come.

“This is the first stage in that, and clearly by the latter stages we want to be fighting and being competitive. I think, if we can just be reliable, that’ll be the first tick in the box and anything after that is a bonus.”

Tincknell added that the mood in the Proton camp is one of excitement as it gears up for its Hypercar debut.

The drivers of the WeatherTech-liveried Porsche were at Monza early in the weekend, on Wednesday, for seat fittings as the team prepared the car for its maiden race.

“Excited, definitely,” said Tincknell, whose No. 88 Porsche GTE-Am entry with Proton made way for the Hypercar effort.

“It’s kind of surreal to finally be here. At the same time, it’s obviously slightly intimidating going into a race weekend and not knowing what to expect. It’s a big learning curve for everyone.

“By Sunday I might be thinking, oh my goodness, we’ve got a lot to learn. But we could also be thinking that we’ve hit the ground running straight away, which is what we’re hoping for.

“I think clearly it’s a learning weekend, data-gathering and trying to do every lap.

“I was speaking to a Le Mans rookie this year and I told them to just do all the laps. It’s like Macau in F3: you’ve got to do every single lap to just get up to speed. It’s the same for us.

“These cars are super complicated and there can be lots of niggles. One little sensor can put you in the garage for a while. But we’re super excited, to be honest.”

The Proton drivers have been “revising like school kids” according to Tincknell, who has driven the Porsche in Multimatic’s simulator.

Bruni has also done simulator testing, while former Porsche LMP1 driver Jani last drove the car virtually two years ago, during the development program.

“I’ve done quite a bit of sim in the car and support stuff this year, for Le Mans and the start of the year at Sebring,” recalled Tincknell.

“So I know the car in the simulator reasonably well, but real life is quite a different step. We’ve been revising like school kids through a 50-page manual.

“I think, for Neel, there’s a similar philosophy to the [Porsche] 919. I’ve got a reasonable amount of Formula E experience even though I’ve never raced that car, but there’s a lot of electronic stuff you can influence the car balance with, through the steering wheel, with the braking and hybrid systems. There is a lot of stuff in the car we can adjust.

“But it’s still a car with four wheels, and we’re brand new to it. Getting up to speed with that is a lot in itself, and then we’ve got all these new systems and procedures on top.

“But I think it’s a car that if you can be on top of that, you can have an edge. For us, it’s important to just do every lap, learning what every switch does and the impact.

“I’d imagine most people’s expectations of us would be fairly low this weekend, but in an ideal world we’ll end up surprising a few people.”

Jani: Later Debut Puts Proton on Back Foot

Proton is the second customer team to introduce a Porsche 963 to the WEC after Hertz Team JOTA received its car at the first opportunity in April and ran it at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

The British outfit registered a sixth-place finish in Belgium before taking the car to the 24 Hours of Le Mans where it briefly led during the early stages until an accident.

“Now they have all done Le Mans, they have done more testing, so in that way we are more on the back foot than if we would have joined in the second or third race,” Jani said.

“Because everyone has gone a lot further since then.

“To have the same result that JOTA had [at Spa], the bar is higher to reach that now because I think everyone has just gained so much already.”