Porsche in the IMSA: In search of lost time

But then the German-American team lost its rhythm. Confidence is now at a low ebb. In the first sprint race at Long Beach, Porsche Penske Motorsport still managed third and fourth places. At Laguna Seca, where the customer team JDC Miller pulled off a surprise victory, the works 963s had to settle for sixth and seventh places; in Detroit, they finished fifth and eighth. At Watkins Glen, too, they could only manage fifth and sixth places after six hours. This leaves them in third and fourth place in the team standings ahead of Sunday’s Motul Grand Prix at Road America (start 17.40 CEST/six hours), behind the Whelen Cadillac with championship-leading driver Jack Aitken and the Meyer-Shank Acura.

Neither Kévin Estre nor Felipe Nasr are willing to accept that the internal ‘clash’ between the lead drivers following their early successes was the cause of the slump. “We’re all professionals; there are no longer any internal problems. We’re driving for the same team and have the same goals. Of course, rivalry flares up from time to time, but I have enormous respect for Kévin,” says Nasr.

The 33-year-old former F1 driver admits: “The goal of winning the championship is probably harder to achieve now than it was at the start of the season. Our start at Daytona and Sebring was phenomenal. Unfortunately, we’ve recently been unable to keep up with our rivals’ pace. To me, it feels as though I’m racing in a different championship. That’s disappointing, but we’ve still got three races to go.” A small consolation: “Our car, in the RS Spyder livery, looks fantastic – that really lifts the spirits.” And Nasr is hopeful: “Anything can happen. I know that when the team is under pressure, it performs particularly well. We’ll make the most of Sunday.”

Estre, a Frenchman living in Höchst in Vorarlberg, sees the situation in much the same way: “Mathematically, we still have a chance of the title, but unfortunately we’ve lost a lot of points. We haven’t been competitive enough to win since Sebring. The fact that we still made it onto the podium at Long Beach was almost a miracle, because we were slow, but the strategy worked. Since then, we’ve simply been too slow. Here and at Road Atlanta – the last two endurance races – we might be able to get something out of it through our tactics.”

It is certainly worth noting that the highest-placed Porsche driver in the drivers’ standings is LMDh rookie Laurin Heinrich, who is second behind Aitken – a driver who initially scored heavily in the works 963 and then did a superb job at JDC Miller. The works duos Nasr/Andlauer and Estre/Vanthoor occupy fourth and sixth places in the standings ahead of Road America.