Momentum building for Porsche Penske WEC program at year’s end

Porsche Penske Motorsport’s World Endurance Championship team is heading into the 2023 season finale and the offseason with a spring in its step, hoping to build on its strong showing at Fuji last time out.

In Japan, Porsche led more than half the race, its No. 6 963 fending off the Toyota attack until the fourth set of pit stops were completed. It marked the first time that an LMDh-spec prototype truly looked capable of taking a win on pace over Toyota and Ferrari’s LMH-spec challengers this season.

This is something that Porsche hopes will continue into this weekend’s eight-hour finale and next season. No. 6 driver Kevin Estre says the performance at Fuji was a real boost for everyone involved in the program.

“It was promising,” he told RACER. “Laurens (Vanthoor) made a great start and gave me the car in the lead with a gap. We knew Toyota was coming but I made no mistakes. I enjoyed leading but it was stressful because if I made any mistakes, they would pass and win it. It took a lot of strength mentally.

“For this week, I think this circuit is going to be OK for us. There is a lot of straight-line braking and we have been strong there for the last few races.”

Andre Lotterer echoed his teammate’s thoughts.

“It was very encouraging at Fuji — it’s always good to be on the podium knowing you could have done better,” he said. “Still, we need more performance but we are operating and executing very well.”

Porsche’s steps in improving the car’s impact on tire life will play a big role in allowing it to compete in Bahrain, on what is a notoriously abrasive circuit.

“This is a race about degradation, and mostly on the rear tires,” Estre said. “We are top three in that category, but Toyota is the best. This race will be won in that department, but if we have a good balance and execute well there’s no reason we can’t challenge them.

“We understand our car better — we control the ride better and understand the aero balance better. Since Monza, we have been better on tire life but obviously, if we are three-tenths off we will be nowhere.

“We have made a lot of steps on setup throughout the season and hopefully, the testing we do in the offseason is going to help us be on a level with Toyota and Ferrari.”

Porsche has also been handed a 7kg weight break for this weekend’s race as part of the first “Platform BoP” change of the season, meaning Cadillac’s V-Series.R will also benefit from the tweak.

Platform BoP changes differ from the standard BoP changes that have been made at various points throughout the season. A platform change means all cars running to the same ruleset will receive an identical adjustment, rather than an individual tweak.