Pascal Wehrlein’s introduction to the Porsche Penske Motorsport team has been ‘super smooth’, the German said in the run-up to his first FIA World Endurance Championship race, the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps this weekend.
“Very good,” said the 30-year-old in the press conference when asked how he was gelling with his new teammates, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor.
“It went super smooth the last couple of weeks and months. We had some test days and got a bit more time together and chatting about the car, about endurance racing and other stuff in life. Yeah, everything pretty smooth, I would say.”
The German made his endurance racing debut at the Daytona 24 Hours earlier this year. He raced with Gianmaria Bruni, Tijmen van der Helm, and Bryce Aron in the #5 JDC Miller Porsche 963, finishing sixth overall and a lap behind the winning #7 Porsche.
Wehrlein’s been preparing for his WEC debut at Spa — so much so that he was in the simulator at Porsche’s base in Weissach, Germany, just hours before the press conference.
“Just arrived from Weissach,” said the Formula E world champion.
“Actually I’ve been in the sim this morning. So yeah, looking forward to it. A new challenge. Obviously I have bit of endurance experience from Daytona.
“It feels already like a long time ago. I’m just looking forward to be back in the car and get to grips with the team, with my teammates and the race.”
Wehrlein’s learnings from Daytona
After the press conference, Wehrlein expanded further, telling reporters what he learnt from racing at Daytona.
“’Quite a lot,” he said.
“I’ve never raced an endurance race. I never shared the car with other drivers. Never raced a race where there are different categories, so different speed of different cars. And especially trying to optimize when and how to overtake the other cars to lose the minimum time there is super important and I think I got a very good first idea in Daytona.
“Obviously now it’s already a couple of months ago and that’s why it’s great to have another experience here in Spa, to prepare me as good as possible for Le Mans.”
Wehrlein is an experienced single seater driver, winning the Formula E world championship in 2024 and previously racing Formula 1. So, endurance racing is very different to what he’s used to —± but he said he’s enjoying the experience.
Preparing for Le Mans
“It’s very different but I definitely like it,” said the Porsche factory driver.
“You know, there’s nice things in both aspects. So, obviously I like to optimize the car until the last little bit and squeeze out everything towards my driving style. But like you said, obviously here it is a bit different. There’s a compromise between the drivers and you’re looking for the ideal six hours, so everyone can extract the most out of the car.
“It will be interesting to see this weekend with Laurens and Kevin how they like the car. Obviously I will follow them and follow their instructions I’m new in the team they are they are the world champions so I will try to adapt as much as I can and follow their advice, learn a lot from them, asking a lot of questions.
“But like I said, the most important thing for me is to learn, to work with this team for the first time on the race weekend so that we just arrive in Le Mans better prepared and in good shape,” Wehrlein concluded.
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