Photo: Fabian Lagunas/SRO
Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach hailed its Intercontinental GT Challenge manufacturers’ championship, by sticking to the series’ ethos of utilizing local teams, as an “extra sweet” achievement given the level of factory competition it was up against in last month’s title-deciding Indianapolis 8 Hour presented by AWS.
The German brand took home its first IGTC crown since 2020 thanks to a second place overall finish and Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS Pro class win for the No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R of Elliott Skeer, Adam Adelson and Laurin Heinrich.
It came in a race that saw title rival BMW hit trouble with a number of its cars, which came with two factory-run Team WRT entries, which helped propel Charles Weerts to the drivers’ championship.
Laudenbach admitted pre-event that Porsche’s decision to forgo an IGTC Pro class entry, despite having led both championships entering the weekend, put the manufacturer in a vulnerable position to factory-crewed BMW and Mercedes-AMG entries.
“I just stick to what I learn from Stephane Ratel,” said Laudenbach. “He said, ‘Listen, we’ve got a championship where the core idea is that we take races out of national championships and make the IGTC out of it.’
“We’re talking about customer racing [in the national championships]. I’m not going to take whatever half-a-million [Euros] and send my best team there and pay for everything.
“This has nothing to do with customer racing.
“When we made the decision, I still can remember when we said in the office, ‘Hey, what are we going to do?’
“Stephane also rang me and asked, ‘Are you going to send a car?’
“We said, ‘No, we’re going to stick to the original plan’ [but] with the full risk to lose it.”
Points from Wright, which also won the Fanatec GT America Pro class title, as well as fellow series entrant RS1 helped seal Porsche’s second IGTC crown following a four-race campaign that included the Nürburgring 24 for the first time.
“The nice thing is that after we won it, I got a very nice text message from Stephane, which I think confirmed what we’ve done that we did stick to the original idea of that championship,” said Laudenbach.
“Obviously it was great that our customer team executed it well, as a Pro-Am team, and brought the [Fanatec GT America Pro class] victory.
“Yes, it made it extra sweet since we know that some other manufacturers did send Pro cars there which normally do not race there.
“It was extra sweet, no question.”
Laudenbach said Porsche’s approach for the 2025 IGTC season, which expands back into a five-round season with the return of Suzuka as a 1000km race, will remain the same.
“We haven’t changed it from the year before to 2024 and we’re not going to change it,” he said.
“This is part of our customer approach. Sometimes we have to accept that you might lose a championship. But we’ll clearly stick to our approach and philosophy that we now have for decades.
“Sometimes it leads to a point where it hurts because others have a bigger effort.
“I think it leads that we have a very good, sustainable system in long-term and it also comes to the point that it’s also from a financial perspective, very healthy.
“That makes stable customer sport. And I think that’s what we need.
He added: “We talk every year about what are we going to do, but these are the little changes. It’s from the general approach, no change.”
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