Porsche has insisted that it’s not going into Saturday’s World Endurance Championship finale in Bahrain with a conservative method because it seems to seal the drivers’ and producers’ titles.
The German marque will begin the Bahrain 8 Hours “seeking to maximise its ending place” with each its 963 LMDhs, in response to Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid.
That remark comes although Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer within the #6 PPM entry solely want to complete ninth to safe the title.
“Our suggestions to everyone seems to be: ‘don’t do something otherwise to what we have now been doing’,” mentioned Diuguid on the eve of the 2024 WEC sequence finale.
“We haven’t gone factors racing at a single occasion this 12 months and we’re not going to go factors racing on Saturday both. That is what’s obtained us into this place.
“We’re going to do what we have now been doing the entire season: let’s go on the market and attempt to beat them [the opposition].”
#6 Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963: Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer
Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Pictures
Urs Kuratle, head of the LMDh programme at Porsche Motorsport, added that the technique is “not so totally different from our regular method”.
However he defined that Porsche and PPM may modify its plans over the course of the eight hours.
“We’ve got to be versatile and need to react to regardless of the race presents,” mentioned Kuratle.
Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach recommended that it might be doable to over-think its technique going into the race in Bahrain.
“If we tried to foretell all the things, we must undergo each situation, and it might be an excessive amount of of a puzzle for the workforce,” he mentioned.
Porsche can be taking an method that it described as “situational”.
“In case you are main the race and your strongest competitor is out, clearly you aren’t going to take any dangers,” defined Laudenbach.
“And if somebody is developing on you with nothing to lose, you may deal with it otherwise than if you’re racing your direct competitors for the championship, as a result of they are going to be ensuring they do not harm their automobile as effectively.”
Porsche’s process within the producers’ standings is tougher than within the drivers’ championship.
It is just 10 factors forward whereas Vanthoor, Estre and Lotterer have a 35-point benefit with solely 38 up for grabs.
A victory for second-placed Toyota would give it the producers’ title even when Porsche finishes second.
Toyota took the purpose for pole place courtesy of Brendon Hartley within the Japanese producers’ #8 entry, however that can haven’t any bearing on the vacation spot of the title if one of many GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercars wins the race.
But it surely may show essential in different situations, nevertheless.
If the most effective Toyota takes second and the most effective PPM entry fourth, for instance, the 2 producers could be tied on 179 factors.
The Japanese producer would then take the title on countback by advantage of extra second locations.
The drivers of the #6 963 have 150 factors going into the race in Bahrain to the 115 of second-placed Ferrari crew of Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina.
Toyota drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries have 113 factors and are additionally mathematically in with an opportunity of the title.
Porsche has 161 factors within the producers’ standings to Toyota’s 151, whereas Ferrari on 134 factors is nominally in title competition.
The Bahrain 8 Hours kicks off at 2pm native time and 11am GMT.
