Michael Christensen says Porsche has done a great job in the first full season for its new GTE car, despite missing out on a second consecutive world title.
Porsche debuted the 911 RSR-19 in 2019 and took a one-two finish straight away in the Silverstone season opener, but the team has struggled somewhat since and has taken one further win, which took place at Spa-Francorchamps.
A challenging season has left both the pairing of Christensen and Kevin Estre and their team-mates Richard Lietz and Gianmaria Bruni unable to win the world championship.
Despite this, Christensen looks back on the car’s first season with a positive attitude. Speaking exclusively to MotorsportWeek.com ahead of the 8 Hours of Bahrain, the Dane points out that the team took frequent podiums and pole positions.
“To be honest, I thought we have done a great job, Christensen said. “The races where we didn’t have an issue, the worst place was second. So in that way, I’m proud. Kevin, I’m sure I can talk for him as well as our engineer that we at least did quite a good job with where we came from.
“I mean, a new car is not easy. It’s never going to be easy to go in there and be the best immediately. We always expect to go and fight for victories and championships. This year, it didn’t get that direction but for sure, we fought for victories and we’ve never had that many poles in a season as well, looking from the team’s standpoint.
“Somehow, we did well. We just didn’t put it together, for various reasons. If you look at it, generally, we did well, but yeah, it didn’t come together at the end of the day.”
Porsche suffered a number of issues throughout the 2019/20 season that prevented them from scoring better results. During last year’s Bahrain round, the team suffered suspension issues. Trouble also struck at Le Mans, when both cars suffered power steering-related problems during a challenging weekend.
“We know the car is well designed and so on, but racing is more than that, especially endurance racing,” Christensen concluded. “It’s more than just having a great car and it’s sometimes frustrating.
“Again, looking back, I’m quite proud of what we did as a team, with what we got and what we had to work with. In that way, it makes me happy, but of course it’s always sad when you don’t win the world championship or a race. We always want to come for a victory.”
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