by John Glynn | Jan 23, 2014 | Porsche People, Race and Rally
Looks like England’s Nick Tandy is again Porsche king of the ovals: all those years going round and round in Ministox paying off!
The Tandy/Pilet/Lietz RSR finished Daytona qualifying in P2: leading 911 and just seven one-hundredths of a second behind Marc Goosens in the SRT Viper.
Top GTD Porsche was a P9 in class for Supercup regular, Norbert Siedler, less than half a second off the Audi R8 of Christopher Haase. Good result for Norbert – well up on the rest!
Nick Tandy’s first Daytona as a Porsche works driver last year ended in a Daytona GT-class pole. Starting behind a Viper isn’t such a bad place to be: just grab it by the neck and twist. For 24 hours.
I told you these boys were fast. Borrowed the timing screen shots from LiveScoring.us. Great service from their site: go there.
Post-Qualifying Daytona Porsche Quotes
Hartmut Kristen, Porsche Head of Motorsport: “The GTLM class qualifying result underlines just how close the competition is in this category. Only seven-hundredths of a second separate the first and second spot. That’s pretty intense and it promises an action-packed, tough race right to the flag. Teams and drivers can’t afford to make the slightest mistake and the technology needs to work perfectly so that the cars are completely operational for the final one or two hours. I’m very pleased with the qualifying.”
Nick Tandy (#911): “We’ll start the race on the Michelin rubber that we used in qualifying, so we had to be careful not to overtax the tyres today. That wasn’t easy, because with the cool weather they took relatively long to reach the right temperature. So we had to find a good compromise. The car ran well and this qualifying was a great start into the new season. I’m happy.”
by John Glynn | Jan 23, 2014 | Race and Rally, Porsche People
Stuttgart must have booked every hotel room in Florida for the busload of Porsche works drivers it’s sent to race at this year’s Daytona Rolex 24 Hour endurance race.
Stuttgart has a two-car works team competing in the 2014 Tudor United Sportscar Championship. In 991 RSRs numbered 911 & 912, fast boys Patrick Pilet (above), Nick Tandy (below) and Richard Lietz pilot #911, while the relentless Patrick Long, Jörg Bergmeister and recent works appointment, Michael Christensen, share #912.
Porsche Works Drivers in customer race teams
In the GTD category, Marco Holzer runs with Alex Job, Mark Lieb is with Patrick Dempsey (nice), newly-nicknamed Hasselhenzler (Wolf Henzler) is with Magnus Racing and Timo Bernhard drives for Park Place Motorsports. Brendon Hartley adds Kiwi colour to the Dinan BMW-powered Starworks prototype. Note the drinks tube, as Brendon needs feeding up! Of course I have an old BMW, so there’s my excuse to cheer for him.
The Porsche Juniors are also out in force. Klaus Bachler drives for Dempsey (why is there no one called Makepeace on the grid), Alex Riberas is with Alex Job and man to watch, Connor de Phillippi is with Timo in the Park Place car. The new RSR livery for Daytona looks good:
Winner of the €200k Porsche Supercup Scholarship prize, New Zealand’s Earl Bamber, was signed up to drive the Mühlner Motorsport 911 on the strength of his Porsche pace to date. “We managed to put something together for Daytona at the end of December,” said Bamber. “There was no time for a New Years party, as I had to get to Florida and start practicing.
“We did a three-day test at Daytona: incredible. The banking makes you dizzy the first few times around. Driving on an oval is spectacular and you’re holding on pretty tight doing 300 kmh through the steep banking, tilted right over on your side. It’s a special place.”
It’s my birthday this weekend, so I have organised peace and quiet and an Internet stream. Also got a meeting to discuss a book deal tomorrow. It’s all kicking off!
by John Glynn | Dec 4, 2013 | Race and Rally, Porsche People
“Some people call me the Space Cowboy, Some call me the Gangster of Love”
I don’t know whether anyone’s ever called Michael Christensen the “Gangster of Love”, but from next year they will be calling him a Porsche Works Racing Driver, which might be even better.
The impressive 23 year-old rookie from Denmark has spent the last two years as a Porsche Junior, racing 911 GT3s, and impressed Stuttgart enough to earn a slot in the works driver lineup. Those who’ve followed Christensen race and win will applaud with the decision. There’s real speed and intelligence in Christensen’s driving – unsurprising when you look at his CV.
Karting from an early age, Christensen rose to become one the of the best by winning Nordic and European Junior titles, finishing second in the World Formula A series and taking back to back German kart titles. He won the Formula BMW Europe Rookies Cup in 2008, and notched up a pile of wins in 2009, only to lose them in a battle over tech regs. Two years in GP3 followed, before he took a shot at the Porsche young drivers selection process, winning a comprehensive support package as a Porsche Junior in the Carrera Cup Deutschland.
Christensen crowned his maiden season with a win at Hockenheim in front of all the right names. In 2013 Supercup, he took a win at the Nurburgring, and made the best rookie award his own. Time will tell what Christensen can do with the works drive, but having him on the team is no bad thing. Graduating to the works team from Supercup at least gives the series some good news this year, following the loss of Sean Edwards.
Congratulations, Michael! Here’s to a great 2014.
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by John Glynn | Dec 2, 2013 | Race and Rally, Porsche People
I spotted Mark Webber in the rugby crowd yesterday, while working with the TV on. Now a former Formula driver, Webber put Porsche on the F1 podium in his final two appearances. Name-checking his future employer in front of the viewing millions, Webber reminded F1 fans that racing is not all about Bernie’s 22-seat circus.
Webber will race Porsche’s LMP prototype in next year’s World Endurance Championship, and escape to a better life-work balance. Mark’s final race in Brazil last weekend was the perfect send-off for the paddock’s favourite fighter.
“It was a very good finish to my career,” Mark told reporters afterwards. “A good fight with all the guys I’ve enjoyed fighting with for most of my career: Seb, Fernando, Lewis, Nico – all the guys who’ve been in the window for the last five or six years.”
F1’s media entourage (and us fans) will miss Webber’s forthright camera face next year. I don’t know who else will step up to the “tell it like it is” role. Jenson Button, maybe – could be his last year, too. Mark’s final F1 weekend was loaded with self-effacing Aussie style.
“Maybe I didn’t have absolute natural talent, but I knew that if I grafted and worked hard, I’d get the results,” said Webber, before his final race. “I smashed a lot of guys who had more talent than me, because they didn’t work as hard as me. I learned that about myself: how important it was to graft and just get my head down. I’ve been doing that for most of my career.” I totally get what he’s saying, and how good it feels to work hard for results.
WEC with Stuttgart won’t be a walk in the park, but there’ll be more space to breathe, time to walk the dogs, and opportunities to help and encourage younger sportsmen and women. I’m sure Mark will be top man at keeping his positive influence going. As we all know, energy can neither be created nor destroyed, and hard-grafting Webber has energy to spare.
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by John Glynn | Apr 14, 2013 | Porsche People, Race and Rally
Just watched a great Chinese Grand Prix, and now watching the 6-Hour World Endurance Championship event at Silverstone.
The 991 RSR is going well: number 92 at the hands of Marc Lieb had a good second stint, claiming a few scalps thanks to a combination of raw pace and Ferrari chaos. A Lieb/Kobayashi dogfight ended prematurely, when Kamui’s 458 went off on a slippery track following a sizeable Strakka/Ferrari crash.
Number 91 has been in the garage, losing two laps when Bergmeister boxed with suspected loose front suspension. The RSR looked quick in clean air and is now back in the hunt. That said, it’s just had a dig in the right front corner from a passing prototype.
The 991 is just one story here at Silverstone. Another hot Porsche topic amongst Radio Le Mans commentators is a rumour that Red Bull F1 Racing driver, Mark Webber, has signed a five-year deal to drive for Porsche.
Currently unconfirmed, there’s been some buzz surrounding Webber and Porsche in the last few days, and this rumour makes some sense, given potential changes in Webber’s arrangements at the end of this season following the Multi21 episode in Malaysia.
Would the deal be Le Mans only, or might it cover a wider campaign by Webber and Stuttgart? The second option would seem to call for F1 retirement. Mark’s about more than F1 and is a mega Porsche fan, so we’ll regard any drive as good news for enthusiasts. Will keep you informed.
by John Glynn | Mar 13, 2013 | Porsche People
Porsche’s Leipzig plant currently employs 1,150 people. This seems like a low number, but if you watched the ‘superfactories’ programme on the facility, you’ll know how much technology is used there.
Today’s announcement that the Leipzig labour force will double when Macan arrives in a few months says everything about volume aspirations. Porsche’s baby SUV could be the motoring equivalent of the iPad, and Stuttgart is gearing up to take full advantage when demand kicks in.
Porsche has just announced a recruitment programme for 1,000 production workers at Leipzig, including 400 engineers for production planning. The company seeks “skilled employees with professional qualifications in body construction, painting, assembly and quality assurance – to include operators, staff for ultrasonic testing, staff for metal sheet forming (and others).”
Unsurprisingly, interest is through the roof. The company has already received 16,500 applications with a further flood expected to follow the official announcement. “The facts speak their own language,”said Siegfried Bülow, Lepizig’s Chairman. “[We offer an] attractive environment and an emotional product. Moreover, the jobs here are future-proof, because in Leipzig all signs point to growth.”
Insert something here about pride and falls, but I doubt Siegfried is wrong. Porsche is putting €500 Million into converting the site to a fully-fledged plant with paint shop and body assembly: its biggest building project ever. “In the summer, we will commission the new paint shop, so the first customer vehicle will roll off the assembly line at the end of the year. The schedule is a challenge, and the plant extension a truly mammoth task. But we are going all out for it,” declares the boss man.
Link here to more information on the Leipzig Porsche plant extension and 1,000 new jobs on offer.
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