Urs Kuratle, head of the Porsche LMDh project: “There is no question of being second”

It seems that the Porsche were extremely well adapted to the early morning hours in cooler conditions. Were you worried during the final moments of the race that things would turn out differently?

It could have easily gone the other way. It was very, very tight. Early in the morning, when it's cold and dark, this is indeed a strong point of the car. We already saw this last year at Sebring, for example, when it gets dark, and it paid off here too.

What does it mean to get all four cars to the finish without too many problems?

For us, this is huge, especially because reliability was one of our biggest concerns last year, and again, we worked hard. Congratulations also to the customers, who did really well. JDC had some bad luck early in the race, and Proton did a great job. I don't think I've realized what that means yet.

During the last two hours of the race, the work in the pits seemed to be a key element in giving you the advantage before the final sprint…

Exactly. As you can imagine, there was a lot of calculations, especially on fuel, with the advantage being following the Cadillac into the pit lane to be able to react. This allowed us to get ahead of her in the end. It's a wonderful job that was done by all these people who showed great calculation ability and managed to make this happen.

Was there any confusion at the end of the race, when the checkered flag was waved earlier than expected (at 23:58 p.m.)?

Yes, there were some radio conversations that may have been confusing, but ultimately we stopped after 24 hours, and there was one more round than what was said on the radio, but To be very honest with you, I had my radio turned off at the time, so I can't tell you about this sequence of verbal exchanges.

With the histories of Porsche and Penske, there was a big expectation on you. As last season's results may have seemed somewhat disappointing, was there pressure to get the season off to a good start?

If you're in a race with Porsche and Penske, you have to win. It's not about being second. The pressure is very strong. Now we have the story of Porsche and Le Mans…

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