Photo: Nick Dungan/Porsche
Defending FIA World Endurance Champion Kevin Estre says he is “disappointed” and “frustrated” following Porsche’s failure to make it into Hyperpole for this week’s season-opening Qatar 1812km with either of its factory cars.
Porsche endured a difficult first qualifying session of the season at the Lusail International Circuit, as Julien Andlauer qualified the No. 5 car in 11th, two places clear of Estre aboard last year’s title-winning No. 6 car.
While expectations for the German marque were muted based on its performance in last week’s Prologue test and free practice, Estre couldn’t hide his disappointment at Porsche’s performance at a track where the 963 dominated last year.
“We are lacking quite a lot of performance, especially on one lap,” said Estre.
“When you look at the long runs in FP2, FP3, we are looking a bit better, it looks like we are not far. But every qualifying sim we did so far, we were one second away minimum.
“Disappointed and frustrated for sure, because we are here to fight for a championship and we are too far away to fight on performance.
“In the end that’s the way it is and we have to live with it this weekend, and hopefully it will get better at Imola, Spa and of course Le Mans.”
While confident that Porsche can make progress in Friday’s race, Estre warned that its long-run performance is unlikely to be enough to challenge the frontrunners.
“We can’t expect miracles,” said the Frenchman. “We can’t expect to fight for a podium for sure. But we should be somewhere scoring points if we do a good job.
“We’ll see; long-run pace on your own is one thing, but ‘raceability’ and passing people is different.”
Estre made a reference to the 963’s Balance of Performance for this week’s Qatar race, with Porsche starting the new season as the joint-heaviest manufacturer together with the Toyota GR010 Hybrid at 1064 kg.
The pole-winning Ferrari 499P is 27 kg lighter, although it is also 6kW less powerful below 250 km/h, and around 13kW less above the so-called ‘Power Gain’ threshold.
“The biggest difference is definitely the weight,” Estre said. “This is a big weight sensitivity track and the fact is we have never been this heavy.
“Last year [Toyota and Ferrari] were complaining a lot about that, and it seems we are struggling like they did.”
Andlauer meanwhile was just 0.020 seconds away from the benchmark needed to make it through to Hyperpole in his first WEC qualifying outing for the works Porsche Penske Motorsport outfit.
“For sure you can always gain a bit here and there, but the balance was ok and my driving wasn’t too bad,” Andlauer told Sportscar365.
“Two hundredths of a second to go through to Hyperpole was definitely possible. But if we had made it through, I don’t think we could have grabbed many [extra] positions.”
Estre added that Porsche’s lack of competitiveness now is harder to swallow now than it was in the first year of the 963 program.
“In 2023, there were many races where the car balance was not there, but now we have the knowledge of the car, the engineers are not changing so much, it makes it more difficult to accept in year three than in year one,” said Estre.
