Porsche factory LMP1 driver Brendon Hartley is 'hungry' for his crew to continue its late season form and mount a title challenge in this year's FIA World Endurance Championship.
The 2015 world champion notched up four victories last season but a poor start meant he and team-mates Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard were unable to defend their title. Instead the crown went to the sister Porsche crew of Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas.
This season Hartley is teaming up with Bernhard and childhood karting friend Earl Bamber, who came into Porsche's full-time lineup following Webber's retirement.
Despite taking a back seat in the title fight last year, the 27-year-old is optimistic that the #2 crew can deliver from the outset and mount a challenge on the other LMP1 trios.
"It's clear the championship result last season came down to our results at the opening three races," Hartley told Motorsport Week.
"At Silverstone we led the race before a crash, and at both Spa and Le Mans we were leading again but had mechanical failures. We started the season with almost no points but then the four race wins and climbed to third in the championship, so we know what could have been."
"We feel good going into this season: although the start of last season didn’t go to plan we finished really strong with four wins."
"Despite what happened we’re going to attack from the first race in the way we’ve always done. We’re hungry for the top step."
The upgraded 2017-spec Porsche 919 Hybrid was unveiled at Monza on Friday ahead of its WEC race debut next month.
Hartley explained that the car was a natural progression of the 919 formula, using the same (but heavily modified) V4 turbocharged engine originally mounted in its 2014 machine.
"In some ways I think Porsche has stuck to its guns," he said, "Because the 919 was a very good concept from its debut season and it’s been evolving ever since."
"Its success was shown by other competitors [Audi] following our example with the lithium-ion battery concept. The steps taken have been gradual, but we believe in the original concept and want to keep the evolution going for it to remain successful."
"We’ve improved gradually in a lot of small areas which when built up should translate into a more rounded, efficient step up in performance during the races," he added, "But there is reason to be careful: we can’t draw too many conclusions yet about what Toyota’s done until the first race at Silverstone.
Hartley's pre-season prep routine has not been confined to LMP1 testing: in January he took part in his fourth Rolex 24 at Daytona, this time with ESM under the new Daytona Prototype International formula, and two weeks prior to that claimed his first-ever 24 hour race victory at Dubai driving a Porsche 911 GT3-R.
"I've been competing at Daytona for four years now and I've done Sebring too; I love racing in the US," he said.
"I’ve done three endurance races before the season starts so I feel like I’m already in the rhythm and ready for WEC."
"I also pushed to do the Dubai 24 Hours and Porsche were happy to let me do it, so winning that was a great achievement."
"It's hard to say if it's a trend among LMP1 drivers – a few of the guys on the WEC grid did Daytona as well – but it's definitely an environment we enjoy."
"That's set me up well for the season, and with the 30 hour endurance test we did last week for Porsche at Paul Ricard I'm confident our performance and reliability can improve even further this year.
The extra preparation – and excellent results – are boding well for 2017. The disappointment of missing out on a second WEC title may have caused an ache, but equally it has driven Hartley to bounce back harder than ever this year.
Porsche begins its WEC campaign at the 6 Hours of Silverstone in April.
