Qatar Thursday Notebook

***Official practice for the Qatar 1812km begun on Thursday with two 90-minute free practice sessions, both of which were topped by Porsche Penske Motorsport. The fastest time of the day, a 1:39.990, was set by Kevin Estre early on in the second session.

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle confirmed to Sportscar365 that the MGU on the No. 6 Porsche 963 was changed after oil was discovered around the unit following the Prologue test. It came after Estre’s accident in the car, which appears to have been unrelated.

***Kuratle said that no further Porsche 963s will be built until after Le Mans for customers, amid talks of Proton Racing boss Christian Ried looking for an additional chassis in the event of his second Porsche, which is first on the reserve list, makes it into the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

***Kuratle said: “As we speak, we’re starting discussions with potential customers, and Proton is one of them, but we won’t be able to build up another chassis to sell to customers prior to Le Mans. If he does it, he has to use one of the existing cars.”

***Porsche built and sold two new customer 963s for this year, in Hertz Team JOTA’s second car as well as a second chassis that went to JDC-Miller Motorsports to be initially used as a spare.

***Ferrari’s head of endurance race cars Ferdinando Cannizzo said the addition of a third Ferrari 499P will “definitely pay off race and race” in terms of data sharing and other elements. “Everything is shared,” he said. “There are no secrets. In the end, we have three Ferraris and we are aiming to have these three Ferraris fighting for the podium.”

***Cannizzo’s comments slightly contradict those of AF Corse team manager Batti Pregliasco, who said on a pre-season media call that the No. 83 AF Corse entry is a “separate entity” that’s focused on competing in the Hypercar teams’ World Cup rather than the overall classification.

***Lamborghini Iron Lynx team principal Andrea Piccini explained that its Hypercar and LMGT3 teams are “completely separate” as part of an off-season evolution from the Italian squad. “We’re trying to structure the entire team like this with units because we’re doing the GT World Challenge [Europe], WEC and IMSA,” Piccini told Sportscar365. “We have so many different programs, we try to have independent units operating in each championship.”

***Cannizzo said Ferrari has been able to lean on its Formula 1 simulation track model from the recently repaved Lusail International Circuit in addition to its test in late November, which was “very important” in establishing a baseline for this weekend. “Our simulators are basically the same,” Cannizzo said. “We have the old [F1] simulator, which has been adapted for our car. It’s quite a useful tool.”

***He added: “What we were missing before the November test was the correlation with the simulation data. But now we completed that, we were able to close the ‘correlation loop’ and develop the setup, as we do for each event with the simulator.”

***The issue with the rear deck lid on the Ford Mustang GT3 has been fixed since the car’s debut in the Rolex 24 at Daytona according to Ford Performance global sports car manager Kevin Groot, who explained that a change has been made in the component’s stiffness. “We think the turbulent air [from the cars] had an interaction,” Groot told Sportscar365. “It was just folding and pulling out of the pins.”

***Ferrari’s global head of endurance Antonello Coletta has echoed BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos’ comments on the two manufacturers’ post-race penalties from last month’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, where both brands were stripped of manufacturer points in GTD Pro and GTD for “violating expected performance levels.”

***Coletta told reporters: “I can say that we’ve asked IMSA for clarification, because frankly speaking, we don’t understand anything about the penalty. I prefer to receive the comment directly from IMSA, and after, we can answer you and other people with a clear idea. At the moment I haven’t [a clear idea].”

***Toyota does not have its official reserve driver Ritomo Miyata on-site in Qatar, as the Japanese youngster is instead participating in Formula 2 at Bahrain International Circuit, just a short distance up the Persian Gulf. Miyata is also set to skip the Circuit of The Americas and Fuji Speedway rounds later in the season owing to F2 clashes.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima said the team would run two-driver crews at COTA or Fuji if one its six race drivers was ruled out by sickness or injury, but that Toyota would have to decide whether to run with two drivers or bring Nakajima off the bench if the worst happening during this weekend’s Qatar 1812km.

***Nakajima admitted he has not stayed in race fit condition this year as he did in 2023, when he was still Toyota’s official reserve driver. “If it was last year, I could say yes with confidence, but now, I don’t know,” he told Sportscar365. “I definitely haven’t been training as hard this winter, so I am not ready. Fingers crossed [I am not needed]!”

***BMW M Team WRT driver Raffaele Marciello warned that thermal degradation will be a key factor during Saturday’s race, indicating that managing tire temperatures will be a crucial thing for drivers to manage. “There is no degradation on track, but if you pass a certain amount of temperature, then you lose all the grip,” he said. “It will be really difficult in the race to keep a good window of the tyre, but it’s the same for everyone.”

***According to the Swiss driver, that will be further complicated by the high amount of downforce on Hypercars, which Marciello believes could limit the amount of close racing seen on track. “When you follow someone, you need one, two laps to recover it back to grip,” he said. “So for sure, it will be a key point on the race.”

***Harry Tincknell told Sportscar365 that it’s not yet been decided on which races he will miss this season amid his dual WEC and WeatherTech Championship campaigns. Tincknell, who drives the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche in the WEC and No. 64 Multimatic Motorsports Ford Mustang GT3 in the WeatherTech Championship, faces two date clashes between the series on the Spa-Francorchamps/WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca and Interlagos/Canadian Tire Motorsport Park weekends.

***Porsche Penske has appointed Jan Lange as its new general manager. Lange previously worked as an engineer as part of Mercedes-AMG’s DTM program before joining Joest Racing, where he served as part as Audi’s LMP1 effort and was project head for the Mazda RT24-P DPi program.

***United Autosports team co-owner Richard Dean ruled out contesting any other GT3 races this year with its newly formed LMGT3 McLaren operation. He told Sportscar365: “We’re fully focused on WEC this year; all we’re doing GT-wise is this.”

***Dean revealed that its initial tests with the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, beginning at Portimao in late October, were done without the new-for-2024 mandated torque sensors, as McLaren had not invested in the integration of the sensors until it was officially confirmed as a LMGT3 manufacturer in late November.

***Both Ford and McLaren are the only LMGT3 manufacturers without previous race or development experience with the torque sensors, which have been mandatory in the Hypercar class since the category’s launch in 2021.

***Ford Performance global sports car manager Kevin Groot added: “Some of the other manufacturers obviously have LMDh programs or LMH programs they can lean on. For us, it’s a big first, because it puts a lot on the shoulders of our calibrators to be able to manage the way that the future of the sport is going with managing power at the half-shafts.”

***The boards above the pit garages have been formatted in digital LED format for the first time. A WEC spokesperson told Sportscar365 that the LED boards are a feature specific to the Lusail International Circuit and not likely to return for the remaining races.

***Longtime Le Mans and sports car racing entrant Hugh Chamberlain passed away on Sunday at the age of 82 due to a heart attack. Chamberlain Engineering, an automotive engine builder turned team, was founded in 1972 and went on to field numerous prototypes and GT cars over the decades.

John Dagys & Davey Euwema contributed to this report