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Porsche 911 RSR, Porsche GT Team

Status report

Porsche 911 RSR, Porsche GT Team
Porsche 911 RSR (911), Porsche GT Team
IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Round 1, 24 Hours of Daytona, USA, Status report
Best Porsche 911 RSR amongst the leaders

Stuttgart. At the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 911 RSR racers fielded by the Porsche GT Team continue to run well. At the wheel of the #911 Porsche, Patrick Pilet (France), Nick Tandy (Great Britain) and Frédéric Makowiecki (France) at times held the lead of the GTLM class. With five manufacturers contesting this category it is the most strongly supported. After the first third of the race and 261 laps, the trio ranks fifth. Their teammates Earl Bamber (New Zealand), Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Gianmaria Bruni (Italy) currently hold seventh position with the #912 car.

At the 5.729-kilometre Daytona International Speedway, an ultra-modern motorsport arena with two fast banked turns and a tight infield, the 510 hp race cars from Weissach took up the legendary long distance classic in Florida from the second grid row. Facing stiff competition from BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari and Ford, they managed to build on their strong qualifying performance and maintain contact with the front-runners. After a brief downpour five hours into the race, the Porsche pilots did not change to wet tyres, unlike most of their rivals. Despite their slower lap times, they were spared two pit stops for tyre changes. Thanks to this strategy and his remarkable performance on slicks on the slowly drying circuit, Patrick Pilet moved into the lead after six hours for the first time in this race.

A total of 50 vehicles started the 56th edition of the long distance classic in Florida at 14.40 hours on Saturday. With 22 overall wins and 77 class victories, Porsche is the most successful manufacturer in the history of this race. The current standings can be found on www.livescoring.us. Outside the USA, the race can be watched live at www.imsa.com.



All reports on the previous season can be found in our archive.