Porsche owns the top three GTE AM slots at the 90-minute point in the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours. Leading the class is Flying Lizard’s number 79 RSR, followed by the Matmut car and then Prospeed. All cars have made one stop. Patrick Pilet is building a great lead in the category.
P4 in the class is Gunnar Racing’s Gunnar Jeannette in the number 58 Ferrari and he’s going well – his team manager has just been called to race control regarding his team mate. I’m following the race using Radio Le Mans commentary (big Porsche thread going at the minute) and watching the Le Mans live pictures (on mute). Means I can be at the office while the race heads into the night.
Here’s the situation in GTE Pro: Aston leads Corvette leads 911 RSR. The pace is pretty tight: Porsche is two minutes back but their best laps are two seconds apart. Remember we have over 22 hours left, so there’s a long way to go.
Up front, it’s Audi, Audi, Toyota, Toyota. More news as it happens.
We’ve been keeping a low profile on Porsche at Le Mans, but all that’s about to change. The weekend should see Ferdinand Mag glued to TV coverage of the event, so I’ve been clearing the decks to allow that to happen.
Got a few more bits to get out of the way, so keep yourself busy by watching this glory day throwback: 956s running and winning the 50th Le Mans in 1982. Current-day Porsche makes almost no sales hay from historic Le Mans Porsche achievements, but it’s great to see golden-day videos shared on the Porsche Cars Youtube channel.
You need 13 minutes to watch all this film. Make sure you’ve got them before you click play!
There’s some great video on Youtube that’s perfect for office lunchbreaks. I know many work servers block the Youtube domain in a browser address bar, so hopefully you’ll be able to watch it as embedded on here, or maybe watch it on your iPhone. My blogs all have an iPhone-friendly mobile theme that should works well on every mobile device.
The 2012 Le Mans 24-Hour race is less than a month away (16-17 June). There will of course be Porsches racing, but let’s look back 31 years, to the 1981 Le Mans as seen in this entertaining, if slightly over-narrated video.
For 1981, four-time Le Mans winner, Jacky Ickx, came out of retirement to drive the 936 with Derek Bell (follow DB on Twitter here). Fitted with the new 2650cc endurance engine derived from Porsche’s Indianapolis design, chassis number 003 used the same air- and water-cooled 930-derived motor as its predecessors, with two turbos. The slippery 936 could hit 225 miles per hour, giving it proper speed.
In the race, number 11 took the lead from the start and won with a 14-lap advantage. Considering its pole lap was just under three and a half minutes long, that’s almost an hour ahead of the rest (okay, that’s man maths but let’s round the numbers up). The race ran for just short of 5,000 kilometres.
Also in the field was the 924 Carrera of the Almeras brothers, and Jurgen Barth/Walter Röhrl in the 944 LM. Some fascinating Porsches racing that year!
Don’t forget to follow Ferdinand Magazine to keep up with old and new Porsche news. I am now splitting stories between both sites, so not all Ferdinand stuff will be shared here and some of it will certainly be of interest to Classic Porsche Blog fans.
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The number 11 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Manthey Racing took top spot in last night’s qualifying 1 session at the 2012 Nurburgring 24-Hour. Three 911s finished in the top ten.
Drivers Lieb, Luhr, Dumas and Lietz managed an 8:27 in night qualifying, over two seconds faster than the Mamerow Racing Audi.
The top ten in Q1 is a real mix: Porsche, Audi, Audi, BMW Z4, Aston, Audi, Aston, then the second Manthey GT3, a McLaren and Sabine Schmitz in another 997. Less than six seconds seperates the top ten cars, so it’s super-tight. The number 8 Haribo Porsche (above) finished just outside the top ten in P11.
Weather here looks cloudy but dry. That said, I am an hour away from the track in Bonn, so it could be flogging rain out there!
Qualifying 2 is just about to start, and then Top 40 Quali later this evening. More news later.
“The good thing is that, in a very competitive group of cars, we are right up at the front with a tyre that has come on a long way in the course of a year. But you can’t just chug around 10 seconds off the pace. You have to push and that means you have to take these cars quickly.
“In a split second you have to make a decision about whether to overtake or where to overtake and not to lose time in doing it. And you are making that decision 30 times in one lap, because you will pass at least 30 cars a lap.”
Falken have a growing endurance racing profile. In the USA, Wolf Henzler and Bryan Sellers race a superb Porsche GT3 RSR (above), and have been fighting their way up the field. More teams are choosing to race on Falken tyres – the popular Haribo Porsche team at this year’s Nurburgring 24-Hour are the latest additions, and I’ve recently put another Porsche racing team in touch with Falken Europe’s head office.
What are the chances of a Falken victory at this year’s event? Well, they’ve got a car which has won in 2012 VLN, and four very capable drivers. Manthey had a run of luck with good reliability and competitor retirements last year, so maybe 2012 will be Falken’s turn. I certainly wouldn’t mind missing my return ferry to attend a victory party.
Follow Ferdinand Magazine on Twitter to keep up with the race as it happens. I’ll be doing my best to tweet the lot: should be plenty to talk about!
This weekend is the 2012 Nürburgring 24-Hour race. I’m there with Falken Tyres Europe and in the garage with Porsche works driver Wolf Henzler, Peter Dumbreck, Martin Ragginger and Sebastian Asch.
As 170 cars take to the most famous racetrack in the world for the 2012 24-Hour, I’ll be attempting some live Porsche reportage through the weekend, via the Ferdinand Porsche Magazine Twitter feed, and blog posts with pics. It all depends on decent wi-fi availability, so fingers crossed for that.
One team that is bound to be in the news is Manthey Racing. Manthey will field four 911s with most of the Porsche works drivers amongst their pilots. This year, Manthey will not use the GT3 RSR, but the GT3 R. “Last year’s winning car has earned its place in the Porsche Museum,” says Olaf Manthey. “We will use two GT3 R (as lead cars). Both vehicles are cared for in Meuspath since 2010, and we have modified the cars over the winter to bring good performance, as the last VLN races have shown.”
Manthey’s leads cars run numbers 10 and 11. 10 is a Moskovskaya Pinstripes GT3 R, driven by works boys Marco Holzer, Jorg Bergmeister and Patrick Long, alongside SuperBrit Nick Tandy. 11 is the Wochenspiegel Assist-liveried 911, piloted by Stuttgart’s own Marc Lieb, Richard Lietz and Romain Dumas, with former works driver Lucas Luhr also in the car. 12 and 14 are also run by Manthey: a GT3 MR and GT3 Cup respectively.
The team is guarded on this year’s chances. “We did win in VLN already, but that does not make us favourites for the 24-Hour,” says Marc Lieb. “The fast factory BMW, and factory-backed Audi R8 and Mercedes-AMG SLS show how close the GT3 competition. In changing conditions, the Z4 goes around corners as if on rails, until they arrive at the Döttinger Height so far ahead that you cannot challenge. Our advantage is the top speed on the straights and the fuel consumption. The 911 has a four-litre engine with six cylinders: the engine is the smallest among the top cars.”
This all sounds like sandbagging, but outright speed did not bring victory in last year’s race. Peerless reliability was Manthey’s route to victory. This year, their intention is identical. “For the 24-hour race, we check once every screw, every clip and every part, however small it may be,” says Olaf. “We started early with the complete routine inspections, well before our last VLN race. As for the typical Eifel weather, we are well sorted. Our company is located in the Rufreichweite Döttinger Height, and in 30 years based here, we have overcome every possible Nürburgring weather situation already.”
Last year’s 24-Hour really switched me on to modern Porsche motorsport: the Hybrid’s charge and the Carrera World Cup was the best racing I had seen in ages. Follow Ferdinand Porsche Magazine on Twitter, or track our updates here.
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Up front, it’s Audi, Audi, Toyota, Toyota. More news as it happens.
