Porsche Penske to Lean On Expanded WEC Staff for Third Car

Photo: Porsche

Porsche Penske Motorsport will lean more heavily on European-based staff for its third Hypercar entry in the 24 Hours of Le Mans according to managing director Jonathan Diuguid, amid a busy month of June for the global prototype operation.

The team’s additional factory Porsche 963, featuring Mathieu Jaminet and two to-be-confirmed co-drivers, will be crewed by mechanics from its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship team like last year, but is also set to benefit from the team’s increase in WEC staff for this season.

It comes amid the WeatherTech Championship races in Detroit at Watkins Glen International, which bookend the French endurance classic unlike last year, which saw no Detroit race and two-week gap between Le Mans and the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen.

“I would say we’re probably going to have a little bit more staff from the WEC program [on the third car],” Diuguid told Sportscar365.

“We’ve increased staffing levels from 2023 to 2024 in our WEC program specifically.

“Now we have five or six shop-based employees [in Mannheim, Germany] that are helping turn things around when the race team is on the road, so we’ll bring them to Le Mans.

“We might not have to bring as many people from the U.S. and lean a little bit more on the people based in Europe.”

Diuguid, however, confirmed that the third Porsche, which will carry the No. 4 at Le Mans, will again be built and prepped at the team’s U.S. base in Mooresville, N.C.

He explained: “It doesn’t have to come from the U.S. It just makes sense because there’s a lot of WEC races and tests during that time of the championship.

“The IMSA season is spaced out three or four weeks apart, so we can build a car there a little bit more efficiently.

“The only additional cost is flying it back and forth from the U.S. But as far as people and personnel, it’s basically an organizational benefit to do it.

“As far as the rest of it, we have all the equipment, we have all the infrastructure already, so that part is going to be considerably more straightforward.”

Diuguid confirmed that Porsche Penske will undertake two endurance tests, at Motorland Aragon and Paul Ricard, respectively, in the build-up to race.

“We focused a lot on reliability after Le Mans [last year],” he explained.

“I think our Daytona performance shows that we made the right decision, but not just us but the two customer cars in Daytona were able to finish on the lead lap with the exception of JDC, [which] had some issues there in the last hour.

“That give us a lot of confidence that the reliability is fixed. So then we can just focus on performance.”

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