Preining Looking Forward to “First Hello” With Porsche 963

DTM champion Thomas Preining is treating his appearance in the FIA World Endurance Championship rookie test in Bahrain as a “first hello” with the Porsche 963 as he prepares to turn his first laps behind the wheel of a prototype.

The Austrian driver was selected to sample the No. 5 Porsche Penske Motorsport machine at Sunday’s test, which was driven across the full season by Fred Makowiecki, Dane Cameron and Michael Christensen.

“For sure I will try to do as well as I can,” Preining told Sportscar365. “Because it can also be valuable for the team of course.

“In general it’s just a first hello between me and the car to see if I can translate my performance from the GT3 to this. And also if I even like it, because in the end I really have no idea.

“I’m sure I will like it. It’s for sure difficult to find somebody who doesn’t. But in the end every driving style is different and I just need to see if mine fits with that. Or if not, if I can adapt quickly.”

Preining admitted to having never driven a prototype in his career to date, having so far almost exclusively focused on competing with Porsche across a range of machinery including Carrera Cup, GT3 and GTE.

“For me, it’s quite difficult to expect because everybody is kind of saying something else,” he said.

“I think there are for sure certain similarities to the cars that I know in terms of weight etc. For sure it’s more powerful and it’s a bit more downforce as well.

“But also on this track specifically it’s obviously a big struggle with tire life. So it’s a lot of challenges going my way for sure.”

Preining have previous knowledge of Bahrain International Circuit from when he joined Dempsey-Proton Racing for the 2019 WEC race there alongside Khaled Al Qubaisi and Adrien de Leener.

Preining is open to the idea of transitioning from GTs to top-class prototypes and has been closely observing the Porsche Penske Motorsport crew at the 8 Hours of Bahrain.

“It’s obviously something very different than I’m used to,” he said.

“I really enjoy DTM and I would for sure like to do it again to try to defend the title. But this is definitely something I would like to do as well.

“Because in the end it’s everybody’s dream in racing to win Le Mans, to win Daytona and this is the way to go. To at least attempt to do it.

“This weekend for sure I’m shadowing them. I’m trying to see how the team operates, how the debriefs kind of work, what the topics are. Because with the hybrid system and everything it’s very different.

“It’s basically my job for the next two days to just try to get some info.”

Traffic management from the perspective of a faster prototype is another potential challenge that Preining will have to reckon with, although he hopes to bank on experience from the Nürburgring 24.

“It’s interesting to go through the traffic,” he said. “I hope I’m faster than the GT cars.

“This is a challenge that I know obviously from Nürburgring, but it’s still very different. The car is also very big.

“In the end you’re a lot quicker on the straights, yes, but you can’t really overtake so easily on the brakes because obviously you arrive quicker so the braking point is maximum at the same point as the GTs I would say.

“It’s a lot of new experiences I will have on Sunday. I’m really looking forward to it.”