The new Porsche 911 RSR narrowly missed out on a
podium spot at its first race outing. At the six hour race in
Silverstone, the season-opener of the sports car World Endurance
Championship (WEC), Porsche works drivers Marc Lieb (Germany), Richard
Lietz (Austria) and Romain Dumas (France) occupied fourth in the GTE-Pro
class with the 470 hp race car from Weissach. At the wheel of the
second 911 RSR, also fielded by the newly-formed Porsche AG Team
Manthey, their works driver colleagues Joerg Bergmeister (Germany),
Patrick Pilet (France) and Timo Bernhard (Germany) took the flag in
sixth.
On the storied British race track, the Porsche 911 RSR,
based on the seventh generation of the iconic 911 sports car, took up
the race after a good qualifying result from the second row of the grid
and could match the pace of its strongest opponents for some time. At
times, Patrick Pilet was running third with the #91 car, before an
unscheduled pit stop cost him more than two laps and pushed him down the
field. Halfway through the race, Romain Dumas was also on track for a
podium place in third with the #92 car. Later, his teammate Richard
Lietz even moved into second place – but at the end of the day it was
not enough for a top three placing.
Wolfgang Hatz, Member of the
Executive Board – Research and Development: “That was the first race
for the new car and the new team. The organisation of the squad worked
well. Of course, there are areas where we have room for improvement, but
it’s like a football team, we first have to get everything running
smoothly. Technically, everything worked on the 911 RSR apart from a one
small thing which we will have fixed by the next race. As far as the
performance is concerned, we still have room for improvement. Naturally
we also have to work on the car, it has a little too much oversteer. But
all in all I regard it as a positive weekend. It wouldn’t have been
good if the car had experienced lots of problems, but that was not the
case. We saw that the 911 RSR can turn consistently quick lap times over
the race distance. Now if we do our homework, I think we’ll finish
further up the field at the next races.”
Timo
Bernhard (#91): “Heading towards Le Mans that was a very valuable race
for us. Our performance wasn’t too bad. Without the front axle problem a
podium place would have been within reach.”
Race result
GTE-Pro class
1. Turner/Mücke/Senna (GB/D/BRA), Aston Martin Vantage, 171 laps
2. Kobayashi/Vilander (J/SF), Ferrari F458 Italia, 170
3. Dalla Lana/Macowiecki/Lamy (CAN/F/P), Aston Martin Vantage, 170
4. Lieb/Lietz/Dumas (D/A/F), Porsche 911 RSR, 170
5. Bruni/Fisichella (I/I), Ferrari F458 Italia, 170
6. Bergmeister/Pilet/Bernhard (D/F/D), Porsche 911 RSR, 168