Yasser Shahin of the LMGT3-class winning #91 Manthey Porsche EMA described their 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps as a variety of highs and lows.
Speaking in the FIA World Endurance Championship post-race press conference, he said: “It’d be nice if we had a bit less drama, let’s just start with that.
“… it was a roller coaster ride. We’ve come a long way in like [the] first year on 992 [latest model of Porsche 911], first year in this format and new to a lot of these tracks.
“So it’s just an amazing learning curve. That’s only possible with great co-drivers and a great team.
“If I look at where we started this weekend, we really wouldn’t have had any ambition to finish where we did but we made really solid progress, every session and by qualifying we fully deserved and thought we could compete for an outright result.
“So, that was okay. I think we I had a very disciplined first couple of stints and brought it in P3 and [a] slightly messy bit stop, but Morris [Schuring] fought back to bring us into the lead and the red flag came.
“Thought we were done for and in fact I was looking for earlier flights.
“And then we just watched it changing. There was maybe half an hour to go, we thought it could be something here.”
After starting P3, the qualifying performance of the 992 could not be doubted in the hands of Shahin, with United Autosports’ McLarens initially in the top-five asserting themselves as primary rivals before the #95 was sent to the rear of the grid.
It emerged, however, that the race protagonists revolved around the #59 McLaren and both Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2s, primarily the #85 Iron Dames machine.
A prolonged red flag lasting was followed by a 1-hour and 44-minute leg to the end of the race, in which both #91 and #92 Manthey Porsche’s – like many of their surrounding rivals – needed to fuel-save in order to reach the end without performing an extra pit stop for fuel.
Following Manthey’s Qatar 1812 km victory, this marked the second time a Manthey LMGT3 Porsche won in the WEC as a Le Mans 24 Hours LMGT3 win is next on their sights.
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