Kuratle: Porsches Would Have Been in the Mix Without Issues

Photo: ACO

Porsche Penske Motorsport would have been in the mix at the 24 Hours of Le Mans had all three of the LMDh cars not hit trouble in the race according to Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle.

The factory Hypercar squad encountered multiple issues in the French endurance classic, with the No. 5 Porsche 963 ending up as the highest-placed car in 16th overall after a post-race penalty.

Despite having led laps early, both the Nos. 5 and 75 Porsches would face technical problems, with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship-crewed entry retiring in the eighth hour due to a fuel pressure issue.

While the No. 6 car was initially in the garage to replace its floor due to an accident from Kevin Estre in the Porsche Curves, it later encountered a high-voltage issue in Hour 19, leaving the No. 5 Porsche as the highest-placed entry after bouncing back from a 30-minute trip to the garage due to a leaking coolant pipe.

However, Michael Christensen was forced to return to the garage in the final hour due to a mechanical drive issue after running as high as fifth.

The car was docked four laps by the stewards post-race as it didn’t complete the final lap within the maximum allowed time.

Speaking with Sportscar365, Kuratle said Porsche learned many lessons over the course of its first Le Mans with the 963.

“It started quite early, actually, with punctures and things like this and then we ran into technical issues, and things, to be fair, we saw before but also new failures we had in the car,” Kuratle explained.

“It never ended. With 20-30 minutes to go we had a drive problem [with the No. 5 car]. We had hybrid problems, we had all sort of problems during the race with all of the cars.”

Kuratle said the pace of all three cars, however, was encouraging and believed they would have easily been in contention with the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac V-Series.R for the final podium position, if not for the issues.

“We would have definitely been a strong competition for Cadillac, and probably ahead or equal to Cadillac,” he said.

“It was nice to see the whole pack was together at the beginning of the race and obviously we saw all of the others fighting at the end.

“If you look at the lap times, they were quite equal.

“The pace was really good and this is why it hurts so much more, actually, because we saw that we would have been really competitive.

“We were out quite early so we will never find out [if we could have fought the Ferrari and Toyota].

“It was not our race, definitely not. But next year, we’ll come back strong.”

When asked how the race compared to the car’s other twice-around-the-clock enduro, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, which marked the Porsche 963’s competition debut, Kuratle admitted Le Mans ended up being an even tougher outing.

“We learned everything, basically,” Kuratle said. “Technical things, operational things, we learned a lot… More than Daytona, simply due to the fact that were were more problems than in Daytona.

“Daytona was actually easier but here, with three cars, and all of them had problems, so there’s much more to learn and much more to take home and do the homework.

“It’s a little bit of time before we have the next race, which is Watkins Glen in IMSA, and there’s no excuse. We have to analyze it in detail and will make the best out of it.”

Laudenbach: “We Had Hoped for More”

Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach admitted the result was disappointing for the German manufacturer, but has vowed to bounce back.

“Le Mans this year was disappointing,” he said. “We had hoped for more.

“There is a massive amount of work involved in this project. Despite the unsatisfactory result, I’d like to thank all of the people in Weissach, at Porsche Penske Motorsport and our partners.

“There were various reasons why we weren’t successful today.

“We’ll now taking a good look at these issues and make further improvements. I feel positive about the future.”

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