No Rolex for Porsche Drivers at Daytona
Porsche celebrates it’s 50th year anniversary since Vic Elford, Jochen Neerpasch, Rolf Stommelen, Jo Siffert and Hans Herrmann drove the Porsche 907 Long Tail, claiming the first victory for Porsche at this event in 1968. This year marks the 56th running of the 24 Hours at Daytona. Porsche is the most successful marque in the history of this event with 22 wins overall.

This year the Porsche GT team had two Porsche 911 RSRs, the mid engine version that was introduced last year with 510hp, managed to qualify 3rd and 4th, securing the 2nd row for the start.
In 3rd was the Porsche 911 RSR #912 with Earl Bamber, Laurens Vanthoor and Gianmaria (Gimi) Bruni (NZ/B/I) while in 4th was the Porsche 911 #911 with Patrick Pilet, Nick Tandy and Frederic Makowiecki (F/GB/F).
In the GTLM class for qualifying we see how competitive it is with the top eight cars qualified within eight-tenths of a second on a 3.56 miles course.

There was a large field with 20 Prototypes, 9 GTLM cars and 22 GTD cars with Porsche, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Acura, BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Chevrolet and Ford. There were drivers from NASCAR, Formula 1, IndyCar and the GT drivers with 20 countries represented.
With the race starting in nice dry, sunny weather, we saw the start at 2:40pm on Saturday, ending on Sunday at 2:40pm. The race started without any incident except for the GTD Porsche #58 of Patrick Long, Christina Nielsen, Robert Renauer and Mathieu Jaminet when Renauer, while on the parade lap, spun and crashed the car into a tire barrier with a large amount of right side front damage. The car had to return to the garage where the rear bumper and wing were changed and front end repair and alignment, but continued to compete competitively for as many points as they could acquire.
With little incidents, the night comes quickly and the words of Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, vice President Motorsport and GT cars said; “We’ve had a rather difficult night. Our #911 Porsche 911 RSR crashed twice without any outside influence. That’s, of course, irritating. This probably also affected the gearbox which we had to repair this morning. The #912 ran without any technical difficulties, however we’re lacking a little speed. We’ve had very few caution phases, which is quite extraordinary at Daytona. Hence the big gap to the leaders. We assume that the pace will increase again in the last few hours of racing.”

At 10:40pm, with 261 laps run, the #911 which had the lead at times, now ranked fifth while the #912 held seventh position.
It was then the Porsche GT team had to finally give up hope of claiming the 78th class win. Nick Tandy had lost control of the 911 RSR at the Bus Stop chicane, slid at high speed over the green strip, which was damp after a heavy shower, crashed into tire wall and had to return to the pits. He was back on track in only 20 minutes, but now 13 laps down from the leader and down from fourth to eighth. Another crash at the same place during the night did not help and cost more time for the team repairs.
The Porsche GTLM team #912 finished 6th while the #911 finished 8th.
It was evident that the BOP, or Balance of Performance, was not totally working as we see from the lap times in GTLM where the Fords outperformed the field of race cars by over one-half second per lap. With over 700 laps, it was evident what a huge difference this made, as only the 3rd place Corvette was still on the lead lap at the end of the race.
I have a theory that I don’t know anyone else has noticed, but the Ford GTs have a definite advantage that no one has acknowledged yet and we will have to wait and see what happens at Sebring and further into the season.
Porsche 911 GT3 R (73), Park Place Motorsports: Jörg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey, Norbert Siedler, Timothy Pappas Porsche 911 GT3 R (58), Wright Motorsports: Patrick Long, Christina Nielsen, Mathieu Jaminet, Robert Renauer Porsche GT Team: Nick Tandy, Patrick Pilet (l-r) Porsche 911 RSR (912), Porsche GT Team: Earl Bamber, Laurens Vanthoor, Gianmaria Bruni
The Porsche 911 RSR cars were doing well at Sebring last year up to the last 15 minutes when the front left tire had gone down while running 2nd behind a Corvette and a new tire changer did not pull the air line back but only raised his hand to signal the car to go, only to have it run over the air line for a penalty and not a podium finish.
The Wright Motorsport GTD Porsche did finish 19th in class So for now, we can only wait and see what happens at Sebring and the other races. I will keep you informed and hope to see you at a CVR event or other motorsport event.