Roger Penske Not Worried as Porsche Penske Motorsport Tries to Right Itself at Sebring

Roger Penske Not Worried as Porsche Penske Motorsport Tries to Right Itself at Sebring

• Porsche Penske Motorsport is looking to gain speed with its Porsche 963 while resolving the technical issues suffered during the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

• Dane Cameron, who drove at Daytona and will be one of the regulars in the WEC, is confident the team can find the speed it needs.

• One man who is not worried is “The Captain,” Roger Penske, who said Sebring will be another opportunity to build momentum.

Sebring is tough enough for teams competing on the ancient and rough concrete runways of the old Army Air Force base. For Porsche Penske Motorsport the upcoming World Endurance Championship’s 1,000-mile race and IMSA’s Twelve Hours of Sebring will be an inflection point.

The team is looking to gain speed with its Porsche 963 while resolving the technical issues suffered during the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

If that were not enough, the delivery of new chassis to three privateer teams is scheduled for the end of April prior to Le Mans in June, where Porsche Penske Motorsport intends to enter three Porsche 963s in the Centenary of the 24-hour race.

One man who is not worried is “The Captain,” Roger Penske, who said Sebring will be another opportunity to build momentum. Although the busiest man in motor racing, including his ownership of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and teams in NASCAR, IndyCar, IMSA and the WEC—in addition to 70,000 employees at the Penske Corporation—Penske is in touch regularly with his lieutenants at Porsche Penske Motorsport.

“While the results (at Daytona) were not what we were hoping for,” Penske told Autoweek. “Our cars had good pace throughout and we learned some valuable lessons.”

Penske’s team won the Sebring 12-hour overall in 2008 with the LMP2 class Porsche RS Spyder. Afterwards, he began talking about a long-held goal of going to Le Mans with Porsche. A decade and a half later, that’s become a reality.

Penske said the division of labor will be an important factor for success at Le Mans.

“As Porsche continues to built the customer program, our teams will be working hard to make sure we are prepared and ready to compete on the biggest stage in sports car racing,” Penske said.

Although rarely present, Penske’s unflappable optimism is palpable within the sports car team. Dane Cameron, who drove at Daytona and will be one of the regulars in the WEC, is confident the team can find the speed it needs.

“It just takes a little bit of time to get these things across the line,” said Cameron, who will drive both races at Sebring. “We have a clear direction and we’re making steps all the time with the car. Were we where we wanted to be at Daytona? Probably not. But I think with the partners that we have the way forward is clear. We’re all pretty confident.”

The WEC’s official Prologue test at Sebring preceding its season opener was the first opportunity to see how well the LMDh cars built by Porsche and Cadillac for competition in IMSA’s GTP category would fare against the Hypercars of the WEC. The Cadillac V-Series.R fielded by Chip Ganassi Racing topped the time chart with its LMDh chassis in the second session (1:48.429). Porsche was fifth behind the Cadillac and the revised Toyota GR010 Hybrids and one of the new Ferrari 499P Hypercars.

On the second day, both Porsche 963s moved up the order in the cooler morning temperatures, when the No. 5 car cracked into the 1:48-second range while running half a second behind the two Toyotas. All the teams are running under the inaugural Balance of Performance published by the WEC for the Sebring round, which will remain in place through the 1,000-mile race. Those rules focus primarily on weight and the combined power of the electric motors and conventional engines to achieve parity.

“The Toyotas are obviously the benchmark,” said Jonathan Diuguid, managing director for the Porsche Penske team. “They’ve been in the series the last couple of years. They’ve done some updates, but have been relatively consistent the last couple of years. They’re a competitive group and they had good pace and consistency on long runs. The Ferrari Hypercar was also quite strong. But we had good pace and I feel like we’re in the game.”

Given the 1,000-mile distance in Friday’s WEC race and the 12 hours on Saturday, resolving the battery pack problem suffered at Daytona has been a priority for the Porsche squad. The team focused on vibration issues and engine harmonics that are part of the 963’s architecture, but otherwise have not gotten to the bottom of what went wrong.

“That’s going to be the devil on our shoulder,” said Diuguid. “Hopefully it doesn’t show its face (at Sebring).”

The gearbox problem that sidelined the No. 6 car late in the race at Daytona was replicated in partnership with supplier Xtrac and resolved, said Diugiud.

So far, Porsche is the only entrant in LMDh or Hypercar to offer customer cars. “It is a steep hill to climb,” acknowledged Urs Kuratle, director factory motorsport LMDh, who cited partnerships with Penske, car builder Multimatic and the customer teams as important factors in meeting the obligations. Fielding customer cars are part of Porsche’s business plan, he said, and were “a premise” for Porsche’s participation in the new prototype program. “It just had to be done.”

In addition to supplying the JDC-Miller Motorsports IMSA team and the WEC entrants Hertz Team JOTA and Proton Competition with 963s by the end of April, Porsche has entered three works cars for the Le Mans 24-hour in June to improve its chances of an overall victory.

Three cars at Le Mans plus a possible fourth entry by JOTA will be a logistical challenge, said Keratle.

“We have to put together an additional crew and ship one of the IMSA cars to France and back again,” Keratle said. “On top of that, due to ongoing supply bottlenecks for certain assemblies, the parts supply might not be perfect. We want to do the best we can and shine in the 75th year of the Porsche brand and at the 100th anniversary of 24 Hours of Le Mans.”

It’s never too late to dream big, as the 86-year-old Penske can tell you.