Porsche boss Alexander Stehlig is pleased about Porsche’s performance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans Test Day, in which the German manufacturer ended the day quickest in GTE Pro.
Porsches bookended the timesheets at both ends of the combined nine hours of running on Sunday. At the end of the morning session, the factory-entered #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 driven by Kevin Estre posted a 03:52:901, which would remain the quickest time of the entire day.
The afternoon session, however, saw the Proton Competition-operated #79 WeatherTech Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 go quickest thanks to a 03:52.938 set by Earl Bamber.
Stehlig said at the end of Sunday’s running that the day had gone well for Porsche.
“The test day went well for us,” said Stehlig. “The racetrack had surprisingly decent grip, which we hadn’t expected, and we found some very typical conditions in the morning session.
“We can already see that it’ll be a very close race – seven of the eight cars in the Pro category are within three-tenths of a second. The team and the car that can achieve the best performance with the fewest mistakes will be at the front in the end.
“We managed to systematically tick off all items on our to-do list. We now have two days to work on the 911 RSR and analyse all the data before we continue on Wednesday afternoon.”
Kevin Estre backed up Stehlig’s comments, stating that he was pleased with Porsche’s progress and how quickly the team managed to get up to speed.
“Compared to previous years, the track was very clean with good grip,” Estre said. “The Le Mans organisers did a great job here.”
“We managed to start work on the setup very early – and that’s generally not the case.
“Our Porsche felt really good from the get-go and we quickly got up to speed. Still, we went through our checklist and found a few things.”
“We now have a lot of data to analyse and discuss. It’s always difficult to know what the competition is doing, but we’ll concentrate on our own business.”
“We’re pleased because we’ve learned a lot and we were always up with the play in terms of balance and lap times.”
Porsche will want to hit the ground running once practice starts on Wednesday in order to make up for a disappointing showing in 2020.
Last year, it did take pole position but was off pace during the race and suffered mechanical problems, ultimately finishing far off from eventual class winners Aston Martin.
