Gianmaria Bruni credits the setup changes made to the Porsche 911 RSR-19 for making the car easier to drive, which contributed to the Italian taking GTE Pro for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Bruni put the #91 Porsche on pole position after initially struggling throughout the Thursday practice sessions, but says that the German outfit significantly changed the setup on the car. This led to Bruni setting a time of 03:50.874 in the first-ever Hyperpole qualifiyng session, which was enough to take pole position.
“After initial difficulties in the first practice,we completely changed the setup of our car – with success! Our 911 RSR is now
significantly easier to drive,” Bruni commented. “That became obvious in the qualifying and the Hyperpole. I didn’t make any mistakes in my flying lap and now I’m on pole with my teammates Richard [Lietz] and Fred [Makowiecki].
“It’s a fantastic result for Porsche. Now we want to be just as successful in the race.”
While Bruni stuck the #91 Porsche on pole position, the #92 car in the hands of Michael Christensen struggled a lot more throughout the session. Christensen ultimately qualified sixth, slowest of all six runners in the shootout session.
The Dane stated that he was disappointed at the result while also pointing out that the #92 Porsche should be quick in the race.
“One Porsche is on pole but unfortunately I was only able to qualify our car on sixth place,” Christensen said. “We need to take another
good look at the data to see why we weren’t quite at the same level as the sister car.
“The starting position at a 24-hour race isn’t the main thing. The pace over the distance is more important. And that’s exactly where we’re looking good. We should be fast, especially during the long night.
I’m now looking forward to the race and I’m curious to see whether the anticipated rain will actually arrive.”
