Why so many difficulties for Porsche in GT?

The rant (or despair?) is signed by Pfaff Motorsports.

Title holder at Daytona and the championship in the GTD Pro category, the Canadian team seems to have no chance of retaining its title in Florida this year. In qualifying, Laurens Vanthoor was more than two seconds from pole position in his class, taken by Maro Engel on the Mercedes-AMG GT3 No. 79 from WeatherTech Racing.

His delay was even close to three seconds compared to Philip Ellis on another car from the brand with the star, the Winward Racing n°57. And the situation did not improve during Free Practice.

 

 

 

 

 

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« Bonjour aux fans de la course, malheureusement, notre Porsche 911 GT3 R sera limitée aux séances d’essais officiels précédant la course, explains the team in the tartan livery. 

While much has been written and said about the Porsches' lack of pace at Daytona last week, this is in no way a show of dissatisfaction with theIMSA or its BoP process. We have confidence in their process, and this difficult decision was made to ensure that we have a car/components in a suitable condition to start the race where our main objective will be just to survive, and gain places through attrition of our competitors. We thank you for your loyal support and we will fight with what we have on race day! »

It is not the only one in this situation, because the six other customer teams in GTD have also encountered great difficulties. Is the new generation of the 911, the 992, a bad start? 

A BoP in questions

From what we learned in the Florida paddock, IMSA would not have used the data from the December tests to establish its Performance Range, although these tests were planned for that. Instead, the championship organizers would have preferred to take into account data from test benches and simulations. During these winter tests, Ferrari and Lamborghini were also present with their 296 GT3 and the EVO2 of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3. Two other cars that can't find any rhythm...

At Porsche, the drivers are aware that they can gain in efficiency with a car that they are still discovering, but they estimate that this would be around three tenths on a circuit like Daytona, not three seconds. And they consider themselves surprised by the difference between the chicane Le Mans (ex-Bus Stop) and the first turn.

How to explain that Kevin Estre, official Porsche driver and chosen to sit in the German Hypercar in WEC, runs at a second and a half of certain gentlemen drivers? The Frenchman, entered in the Florida double clock with Volt Racing, has nevertheless demonstrated in recent years that he is one of the fastest in the world in GT.

Are the organizers hoping to avoid the indignity of being fooled by a manufacturer who hides its game during testing? In the meantime, the path seems royal for Mercedes which signed an authoritarian quadruplet (by combining GTD Pro and GTD) during qualifying. Be careful, however, of the Lexus, which remains discreetly in ambush behind the German cars. As for whether Porche and Ferrari will be able to join in the fight for victory, we will have to wait until this weekend to find out. If this is not the case, these 24 hours will be long for some...

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