Superior brake parts cleanerSuperior brake parts cleaner

Podium for Hartley on WEC Porsche debut

Motorsport.com

Motorsport.com11:04am 21 April 2014

s1_24881

Last month, at the Prologue at Paul Ricard – the pre-season test that had the Audi R18 e-tron, the Toyota TS040 Hybrid and the new Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 cars on the track together for the first time – much was made by those of us in the media by the fact that the fastest lap turned in the test was by one of the Porsches.

Not much was made of it by Porsche, though. “It’s nice,” a Porsche engineer told Motorsport.com, “but it means nothing here. Everyone is in a different state of tune. The proof will come at Silverstone.”

Indeed it did. Under wet conditions that eventually became so dreadful that the six-hour World Endurance Championship had to be red-flagged early, Toyota dominated, Audi crashed, and one Porsche broke and the other finished third to the pair of musclebound Toyotas. In all, not a bad debut for the new Porsche; the number 14 car lost its left front wheel – which one of the Porsches did also during the Prologue, suggesting there is work to be done there, either mechanically or with the pit crew – and retired early on. But the number 20 sister Porsche of Timo Bernhard, Brendon Hartley and Mark Webber ended up two laps behind the winning Toyota, one lap behind the second-place Toyota.

That said, had the two Audis not uncharacteristically crashed out, it appears the Porsches would have needed more speed to make the podium. The fastest lap of the race was 1 minute, 44.217 seconds, clocked by Andre Lotterer in the number 2 Audi, just a tick faster than the sister Audi, which had a best lap of 1:44.656.

The winning Toyota’s best lap was 1:44.646, and the second-place Toyota’s best was an even quicker 1:44.326.

The best lap by a Porsche was a 1:45.245 by the third-place car, with the sister car’s best lap a 1:45.452. Granted, the fastest and slowest times among the six cars are quite close, but with both Audis and both Toyotas in the 1:44s, and the Porsches in the 1:45s, even marginal differences add up quickly in an endurance race. Either the Porsches need to find a bit more speed, improve their wet-weather setup, or both.

And they’ll have to do it quickly, as round two is coming soon – May 3 and 4 with the Six Hours of Spa-Francorchamps.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Second-gen Porsche 919 completes first test programme

9:16am 23 January 2015

Autosport
0

The second-generation porsche 919 hybrid completed more than 4000km over the course of its first development test this week. the…  More >

Nissan’s new LMP1 spotted at COTA

1:28pm 20 January 2015

Sportscar365
0

q5vlij98bigbkxt60ezd

Jalopnik has reported monday that new nissan’s new lmp1 challenger, the nissan gt-r lm nismo, has been spotted testing…  More >

Porsche reveals its 2015 919 challenger

11:38am 17 January 2015

Autosport
0

1421416371

Porsche has revealed its all-new, second-generation 919 hybrid ahead of the start of its first test of the new…  More >

Jaguar hasn’t raced in the le mans top category since 1991, but that hasn’t stopped designer mark hostler dreaming up…  More >

Sportscars: ‘Whats new in 2015?’ – Part Three: LMP2

6:00am 31 December 2014

MotorNews.co.nz
0

Mazda-p2-2

After a year that saw the aco prototype class struggle for numbers in north america and on the global…  More >

Sportscars: ‘Whats new in 2015?’ – Part Two: GT3 & GT-E

6:00am 30 December 2014

MotorNews.co.nz
0

Gulf12Hours_Race-59

There will be a number of new and revised gt3 racers on the grids during 2015. mclaren the new, very good-looking,…  More >

RACE COUNTDOWN

V8 SuperTourers

Round 4

Waikato 250, Hampton Downs, 31 January

NZV8

Round 5

Manfeild Circuit, Feilding, 15 February

Indycars

Round 1

Brasilia Indy 300, Brasilia, 1 March

V8 Supercars

Round 1

Clipsal 500, Adelaide, 1 March

V8 Supercars

Round 2

Tasmania 400, Symmons Plains, 1 March

  • Latest story comments

  • CRC Motornews poll

    Who do you think will be top of the Kiwi in the 2014 V8 Supercars?

      View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...
  • Newsletter icon

    Get the latest motorsport news delivered to your inbox