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Porsche Was “Fighting Whole Race” With Issues on Both 963s

Porsche LMDh director says “operational failures” prevented podium run for 963 at Bahrain…

Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche

Porsche Penske Motorsport experienced a “busy race” battling several issues on both of its cars that got in the way of a potential podium finish in the 8 Hours of Bahrain, according to its factory LMDh director Urs Kuratle.

The pair of works Porsche 963s ended Saturday’s eight-hour FIA World Endurance Championship finale in fifth and seventh, while customer squad Hertz Team JOTA finished ahead of them in fourth position.

Kuratle described how Porsche Penske was “fighting the whole race” addressing problems with its cars, varying from bodywork damage to sensor issues and other malfunctions.

He lamented that the team “lost too much time” due to operational failures, which prevented the pair of 963s from properly joining both JOTA and the two Ferrari 499Ps in the battle for the final step on the podium behind Toyota.

“We were fighting the whole race with both cars, basically,” said Kuratle.

“The guys worked through [Friday] night [on] car No. 5 but nobody fell asleep because they were constantly working on something on the cars.”

“We again had an air conditioning issue with car No. 6 and we had software things and glitches and fighting our sensors with both cars throughout the whole race.

“There was a number of things. For JOTA, it was not an easy race as well. They had the drive-through but they were better than us today and congratulations to them because they simply beat us today.”

The better-placed of the two factory entries, the No. 6 machine of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer, suffered bodywork damage in the opening phase.

Although unrelated to the Turn 1 incident involving Toyota’s Mike Conway and Cadillac’s Earl Bamber, the damage eventually forced a nose change during the second pit stop.

Additionally, Kuratle indicated that both of its 963s were plagued by varying sensor issues throughout the eight-hour contest.

“We had a fuel pressure thing,” he said. “We had a torque sensor. There were a number of sensors we had to replace on both cars on various different occasions. It was one of those races which are not easy.

“If, when, [what] else doesn’t count, [as] we all know. But there was a real chance to go on the podium today. I think the 963 had the good pace today. We saw it with JOTA.

“We were able to fight the Ferraris, even with some drive-throughs. But we didn’t manage to bring it home.

“The same would go for JOTA because they could have been on the podium, if, when, else, blah blah blah.

“But P3 in the championship against Cadillac, which for a couple of races was our main goal actually to get this one because that was what was realistically achievable for us. That’s what we’ve done.”

Kuratle praised JOTA, which emerged as Porsche’s main podium threat in the second half of the race but had a run at the top three impacted by a drive-through penalty for an unsafe rejoin in hour six.

“I’m happy for JOTA,” Kuratle said. “What I’m not happy about is the performance that we did here today because we had too many mistakes.

“Also JOTA had some mistakes. The most important thing is that there’s a lot of Porsches in front, at times. If you look at who’s fastest on track at the time.

“The 963 today was a podium car. You can say it is but we simply didn’t manage it. This is what I’m not happy about. Also for JOTA, not at the end of the day, because the 963 could have done better.”

Daniel Lloyd contributed to this report

Davey Euwema is Sportscar365's European Editor. Based in The Netherlands, Euwema covers the FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS, among other series.

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