Porsche 346 at Long Beach

Yes, the Porsche 963’s came in 3rd, 4th and 6th, which retains the lead for Porsche in the manufacturers’ championship, in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, and also the lead for Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer, in the driver’s championship.

All photos from Porsche.

The Long Beach street course is a 1.968 mile course with 12 turns and no runoff areas, just walls of barriers or cars. With lap times of just over one minute, a 100-minute race gives you just about 100 laps on this very tight, winding course while maneuvering through two classes of race cars.

The Penske Porsche 963 GTP cars started the race with Felipe Nasr and Julien Andlauer in the #5 Porsche 963 in 5th place, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche in 6th place, and Tijmen van der Helm and Laurin Heinrich in the JDC/Miller Motorsports Porsche 963, in 10th. In GTD, AO Racing Roxy was in 20th and Wright Motorsports was in 24th.

While Laurin Heinrich had raced with the Penske Porsche 963 team at Daytona and Sebring, and winning both, he was the 3rd support driver for the team and is now positioned to race for the JDC/Miller Motorsports 963 for the season.

So, the race had its usual incidents for a street course, with 5 cautions. That is where JDC-Miller MotorSports Porsche 963 used a bold strategy, with a yellow flag caution at five minutes into the race. They brought the car in, did a service, and changed drivers to Laurin Heinrich. Laurin had never driven this actual course, only on the simulator. Driving a street course requires a different driving style, with its tight corners and confined spaces to pass.

While the Penske Porsche kept up in the top five during the race, it was Laurin Heinrich who drove 95 minutes of the 100-minute race and brought the JDC-Miller MotorSports 963 to a very respectable result, considering it was his first time on a street course driving the Porsche 963.

Porsche finished the #6 Penske Porsche 963, with Vanthoor and Estre, to a podium 3rd place, while the #7 Penske Porsche 963 came in 4th place and the #5 JDC-Miller came in 6th place. Considering that both Penske Porsche 963 cars had an IMSA performance adjustment of an additional 99 lbs. of weight added, the teams did a great job in this race.

In GTD, the AO Racing “Roxy” came in 13th place and Wright Motorsports came in 15th.

In the Porsche Carrera Cup North America race, we saw new driver Tom Sargent from Australia, with the GMG Racing team in the Porsche 911GT3R, win his first two races for the team. James Sofronas, GMG team owner, said that Tom Sargent was ‘the obvious choice, he is one of the hottest drivers in international sports car racing right now, knows our team and all of our Porsches, and has winning experience in Carrera Cup’.