Porsche Penske “For Sure With a Shot” at Le Mans Win

Matt Campbell said Porsche Penske Motorsport is in “for sure with a shot” of winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, despite a looming comeback drive for the No. 6 Porsche 963 after its disqualification from first qualifying.

Now in its third year of FIA World Endurance Championship competition, the Porsche has yet to conquer Le Mans, despite winning the Hypercar drivers’ title and racking up the GTP drivers’ and manufacturers’ titles in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship last year.

Nevertheless, Campbell feels the team’s fleet of 963s are likely to be more competitive than in years prior, given off-season development work and the team’s more competitive long-run pace at Circuit de la Sarthe.

“We’ve been very, very consistent with our speed and car direction on Car 6,” Campbell told Sportscar365. “So I think we’re in for sure with a shot. But we have to wait and see.

“You never truly know at this race sometimes. I think most years in Le Mans, you don’t really know until the first hour, just how you stack up.

“I think our long-run speed has been quite competitive so far, and we’ve been reasonably happy with our car balance. So the direction we’ve chosen is definitely the right way.

“Maybe with some of the other manufacturers, their approach to curb usage isn’t going to be sustainable for 24 Hours.

“We’ve definitely been focused on our race approach, and we’ll just have to wait and see for the speed, but we’ve just got to be smart. It’s a long race.”

The No. 6 car with Campbell, Kevin Estre, and Laurens Vanthoor will start the race from the rear of the Hypercar class after being disqualified from first qualifying for a minimum weight infraction, while its sister No. 5 and No. 4 entries both start from inside the top-five.

“We definitely have to take our time, not to damage the car in the first hour, which is the most critical trying to pass in some cars,” Estre told reporters.

“But we have a lot of experience within us three, and I’m sure, with the great team we have behind us, you know, they’re going to guide us and try to help us to take the right decision at the right time.

“But as it seems, this weekend, [the car] seems to have a good pace, an okay top speed, so it’ll be okay to race the others and trying to fight back.

“Laurens said that he has a goal for Hour 1, so we’ll see if we can achieve it.”

Porsche declared the usage of its second and third Evo jokers, geared towards front suspension and rear aerodynamics, and while Campbell didn’t explicitly point to these jokers as the precise reason for the gains, he did say that the team has “definitely made a step there in the right direction.’

“The car was quite a lot different last year,” he added. “This has been, let’s say, an improvement that we’ve made regarding top speed and everything like that, but in general, just making the car a little bit nicer overall.

“I don’t think necessarily at all tracks this is a positive. I don’t think every track it’s going to be faster, but let’s say, definitely at the track like Le Mans, it’s clear the step we’ve made.”

When asked about the car’s top speed, Campbell said: “I think that’s definitely our biggest improvement and that was also one of our focuses for sure, because that was our weakness in the past and we just really lacked that racability.

“I think our speed last year was quite okay, but we struggled for racability and just purely on top speed.”