Pino Hopeful of Double Porsche 963 Effort Amid WEC Uncertainty

Photo: Porsche

Nico Pino said he’s targeting a dual campaign with the Porsche 963 in both the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year, amid uncertainty on whether the car will contest the Hypercar class in 2026.

The 21-year-old Chilean driver joined JDC-Miller Motorsports for the first time in last weekend’s IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway, setting the second quickest time overall of the two-day outing in the Minnesota-based team’s GTP entry.

Pino’s impressive pace, as the quickest Porsche driver over the test, came as part of a tryout with the team for a possible Michelin Endurance Cup seat next year.

JDC-Miller has so far only confirmed Tijmen van der Helm in its lineup for the 2026 WeatherTech Championship season.

Speaking with Sportscar365, Pino, who took part in the opening three Endurance Cup races in Proton Competition’s Porsche as well as a full season campaign with the German squad in WEC, feels like he made continued progression at the wheel of the LMDh car.

“Since I drove the car in January at the beginning of the season with Proton, of course, I would say both teams have made a lot of improvement in understanding the new package,” he said.

“The car feels very nice. We made a lot of improvements throughout [Friday and Saturday] to go forward [in the test].

“Overall I’m very happy with how the progression has been going. Of course you never know what the others are doing.”

When asked about his targets for 2026, Pino said he’d like to have a similar program to this year despite mounting questions if the 963 will contest the full WEC season.

However, as first reported by The Race and Endurance-Info, it’s understood there have been recent discussions between Team Penske and Proton that could see Roger Penske’s organization potentially support the Christian Ried-led team to field two cars in the WEC, in order to meet the requirement for Porsche Penske Motorsport to compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

While declining to comment about the ongoing situation, Pino said he’s hopeful a solution could be found that would keep Proton on the Hypercar grid.

“There’s a lot of question marks,” he said. “The idea [for me] is to do a similar program to this year, both IMSA and WEC if it’s possible. That would be the ideal [scenario] also for experience.

“This year I had a lot of progression adapting to the car, understanding it, what do I need from it in terms of setup, systems and so on.

“It would be great. I think there was a big step, especially on the second half of the season on my side in terms of performance or extracting more from the car.

“If we can replicate something like that for next year, it would be great.

“For me I would very much like to do all of the endurance races [in IMSA]. I know there’s a clash between the WEC and [Long Beach] so ideally all the long ones.

“But there’s nothing decided yet on both ends.”

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