GTE Pro championship contender Kevin Estre expects a far closer battle between Porsche and Ferrari in the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, as he believes the Italian squad ‘gave up early’ during the previous race in Bahrain.
The fight between Ferrari and Porsche has been the subject of ongoing discussion since WEC landed in Bahrain for its double header season finale. Ferrari was given an unexpected power reduction as part of a Balance of Performance change, after which Porsche won the Six Hours of Bahrain in dominant fashion.
Ferrari has since called to restore the original BOP, which they ACO has partially played into with another alteration that has seen half of the power restored that was taken previously.
The difference between the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado and Estre’s #92 Porsche, which he shares this weekend with Neel Jani and Michael Christensen, has been reduced down to a single point.
Speaking ahead of the weekend, Estre believes that the gap between the two manufacturers will be significantly closer. At the same time, the Frenchman pulled Ferrari’s performance levels into question, saying that he believes that the Prancing Horse’s performance tends to fluctuate on some occasions.
“Ferrari has been strong the whole year, but some races, they’ve been on a certain amount of performance and then for 10 laps, they show a much higher performance range, which we never show because we can’t do that,” Estre said. We are always trying to give our best all the time.”
“Obviously it’s difficult to know what they’re doing but last weekend, I don’t think they they gave it all. They gave up really early. So that’s why it was maybe not much of a race. This race, they got the BOP plus the chairmanship is closing, so I’m sure it’s going to be closer.”
“I’m not sure what their strategy is and what they are doing in terms of performance, but we expect a bigger fight for sure.”
Estre believes there is another factor that will result in closer racing this weekend compared to the previous race: the tyres. The teams will have to deal with lower temperatures because a significant portion will be taking part in the cooler evening. Additionally, the teams will have two extra sets of tyres to work with compared to the previous event.
“The last race was a bit of a of a surviving race, as it was really, really hard for the tyres,” Estre explained. “We really had to take care, compromise the driving, the way we approach the setup and the first laps of the stint.”
“The eight hour race will be like this for the first two hours where it’s still hot. As soon as we start to come to the night, the track temperature drops. This makes the biggest difference on tires. That’s why I think it’s going to be a different race here. Plus, we have two sets, more tires for two hours more, which open the strategy a lot more.”
“I think it will be more of a sprint race-type, driving wise and in terms of ttre usage, compared to the last six hour race.”
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