Porsche Penske Motorsport almost snatched an unlikely victory in the 12 Hours of Sebring, until its cars crashed out along with the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura inside the last 20 minutes of the Florida sportscar classic while scrapping over the lead.
Before that event, PPM’s WEC team had finished a distant second best at Sebring to the Toyotas – ending the race two laps in arrears.
The new 963 almost grabbed pole position for IMSA’s Daytona 24 Hours but then struggled for consistent race pace there – until a sparkling stint by Nick Tandy on Sunday when he passed all the other GTP contenders.
When asked by Motorsport.com how he assessed the Porsche 963’s form after 36 hours of racing with the new GTP cars in the season-opening Florida classics, WTR Acura racer Ricky Taylor admitted he was puzzled.
“From our side, it does look like that car works in a very small window, if it’s that or how they’re strategizing how to run the races, it’s complicated to figure that out,” he said. “I guess ‘peaky’ is a good word to describe it, but it just seems like when everything is good, that car is very strong. But outside of that window, it seems like they struggle a lot.
“We were surprised, especially watching the WEC race, with how much they struggled. But in the IMSA race, we thought that was a fair reflection of their pace, but the way they came alive at the end was surprising for us.
“But they have a lot of smart people there and a lot of good drivers.”
Renger van der Zande, Cadillac V- Series.R, leads a Porsche 963
Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
When Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac star van der Zande was quizzed over his thoughts of the Porsche’s pace at Sebring, he replied: “They were lightning fast, which they didn’t show at the beginning of the race. But you can see as much as we do!
“We’re seeing the same thing as you journalists… I think it’s very clear, they look a little erratic, they spin off a bit, they hit the inside wall at Turn 1 [Matt Campbell in qualifying at Sebring] and then they have a big crash at the end of the race. It looks like a very oversteery car from the outside.
“Also, the difference within Porsche that the WEC team and IMSA team had, where there’s not much of a difference in cars, but that was also interesting to see. But we’re very focused on our Cadillac program, I think we are spending enough energy on that than looking at what the competition is doing!”
#60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06: Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
The balance of performance for this weekend’s street race at Long Beach has favored the Porsche with a 12kg weight reduction but taken away 2kW (2.6bhp) of power and had its maximum stint energy reduced by 5MJ. The Cadillac V-Series.R is the lightest car at 1031kg, 5kg lighter than the Porsche.
Acura’s ARX-06 is the heaviest in class, at 1045kg, but that is 7kg lighter than at Sebring. Both Acura and Caddy have been given small energy reductions ahead of this race.
“Going to Long Beach, I think it’s a level playing field with all the different numbers of how the BoP is set together,” added van der Zande. “It should be very equal, and I think it’s more equal than ever before.
“We are all searching here and there for fine details with setup and so on, from the engine side, chassis side and aerodynamics. At the same time, from what you saw at Daytona and Sebring, it’s pretty close.”
