Fabio421

Case closed http://www.porsche.com/usa/



Grand-Am Series, 24 Hours of Daytona, USA, Race report
Porsche wins long distance classic in Florida
The Daytona 24 hour race concluded with a victory for Porsche. After Brumos Racing won the event last year with a Porsche 911-powered prototype, this time victory went to a Riley fitted with an independently-developed V8 engine based on the Porsche Cayenne. Sharing the cockpit of the winning car were Joao Barbosa (Portugal), Terry Borcheller (USA), Ryan Dalziel (USA) and Mike Rockenfeller (Switzerland). For Porsche, this marked the 22nd success at the long distance classic in Florida.

“That was a thrilling and tough race from start to finish,” said Hartmut Kristen, Head of Porsche Motorsport. “After last year’s great result, the Porsche teams were again very successful.”

In the GT class, Porsche works drivers Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Patrick Long (USA) secured second with their TRG/Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. Last year’s winners received back-up from their team mates Johannes van Overbeek (USA) and Seth Neiman (USA). “Of course, you’re never totally happy with second place, but this time we can be satisfied considering the problems we had to cope with,” said Patrick Long. A broken front shock absorber had to be replaced and at one stage the throttle pedal stuck. The stops for repairs cost the title defenders their lead and robbed them of the chance of another win. Nevertheless, Joerg Bergmeister was happy with the outcome: “Over most of the distance our car ran beautifully. The more grip the track developed, the faster we became. In the final hours we were clearly the quickest.”

Porsche works driver Wolf Henzler (Germany) with Ted Ballou (USA), Kelly Collins (USA), Patrick Flanagan (USA) and Andy Lally (USA) finished third with their TRG Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. “Third place was a decent end to an eventful race,” he commented. “Due to problems early on in the race we fell back to eleventh. I never imagined we could bring home a podium result. But we fought back and pulled out all stops to the flag.”

For Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Romain Dumas (France) not everything ran as smoothly on the Daytona International Speedway. With their 911 GT3 Cup fielded by TRG Racing they were holding a comfortable three-lap lead in the GT class when their team mate Bobby Labonte (USA) ran out of fuel. The NASCAR star had to be towed into the infield. Through this mishap the leaders lost their advantage and later fell even further back in the field with a faulty clutch. The trio eventually saw the flag in ninth place.

Race result
1. Barbosa/Borcheller/Dalziel/Rockenfeller (P/USA/USA/CH),
Porsche Riley (DP), 755 laps
2. Pruett/Papis/Rojas/Wilson (USA/I/MEX/USA),
BMW Riley (DP), 755
3. Hunter-Reay/Bouchut/Tucker/Luhr/Westbrook (USA/F/USA/D/GB),
BMW Riley (DP), 751
4. Krohn/Braun/Jonsson/Zonta (USA/USA/USA/BRA),
Ford Lola (DP), 735
5. Friselle/Negri/Pew/Wilkins (USA/USA/USA/USA),
Ford Riley (DP), 726
6. Angelelli/Lamy/R. Taylor/W. Taylor (MC/P/USA/USA),
Ford Dallara (DP), 711
7. Allmendinger/Friselle/Patterson/Valiante (USA/USA/USA/CAN),
Ford Riley (DP), 707
8. Bomarito/Ham/Haskell/Tremblay (USA/USA/USA/USA),
Mazda RX-8 (GT), 707
9. Bergmeister/Long/van Overbeek/Neiman (D/USA/USA/USA),
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (GT), 703
10. Henzler/Flanagan/Ballou/Collins/Lally (D/USA/USA/USA/USA),
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup (GT), 691


/thread

Gary R.

It was all those right turns that confused him....

Larry Herman

inverterman

!Enlighten me! I saw Ferrari, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Mazda, BMW, all in GT. The classes are DP, GT. Stage I, II, II IV, whatever, Porsche lost GT.

m42racer

Fantastic result for the team and the engine developer. I could not think of a better result for the USA, and Porsche racing here. FINALLY , this will show just how pathetic the US arm of Porsche Motorsport is and how out of touch Porsche Motorsport AG is.

For years they have taken our money and spoonfeed us what they think we need and no more. The head of Porsche MS over here for years has been nothing but a puppet to the demands of AG. PMNA could have developed many different engines for racing here in the US over the years dating back to the 935/962 days. During th IMSA 962 days, PMNA ran Le Man spec engines at DelMar. I remember teams begging for engines more suited to the US race tracks, until finally they all left and ran sonmething else. I'm told the parts were on the shelf.

Over the past 10 years or so, PMNA forced every Porsche race entrant to use their sealed engine. This has cost racers millions of dollars, taken the US engine builder out of the game and in return, given us only what they wanted or felt we needed. It has cost me in the past $12,000.00 just for a set of Pistons. Those same Pistons I had made for another unsealed engine and cost only $2400.00. Same exact Pistons, minus the Posche mark up.

The leadership at PMNA was/is completely incompentent and AG know this. This is why the rope is very short and they are unable to develop engines like the Cayenne for US racing. If AG had any faith in their ability they would not stop this from happening. Instead the idiot that ran PMNA for years decided politics was a bigger part of Porsche's involverment in US motorsport than developing engines.

That said, if he could!

I hope this catches on and more do the same. We all benefit from this and hopefully someone will wake up at Porsche and see the writing is on the wall.

Fantastic result.

Streak

This is a tough one.

I am a Pcar fan through and through. I have no knowledge of Porsche at the corporate level. I just love the cars.

The 9 car, from all I've heard or read, had zero support from Porsche. Hell, it didn't even have the proper Porsche script on it.

How much of that Cayenne engine still resembles the Porsche version?

For Porsche to promote is as a victory for Porsche rubs me the wrong way. The 9 team did all the work on their own and Porsche gets to chalk up another 24 victory?

If Porsche wants to now come in and write check for the R&D then they can take the credit.

Again, I have no intimate knowledge behind the scenes. I only know what I know. This doesn't seem right to me and I am loathe to find fault with the brand for any reason.

analogmike

what m42racer said...

I just wonder WHY they used a Porsche engine as a basis at all, without some factory money. It would be a lot easier to use a Chevy, Ford, even Toyota or BMW as they are proven and plug and play. Was there any Porsche money????

NaroEscape

I can tell you this from a very reliable source: having that car win, and having a Cayman be the top Porsche qualifier in the Continental Challenge - on it's first venture into pro racing - is a big internal political nightmare for Porsche.

500

To be fair, Porsche did say right at the beginning that it was an independently developed motor... One has to suppose that their was some reason that the team wanted to go this route as opposed to another motor.

Veloce Raptor

Good lord. Why???

They should just get off their high horses & embrace it. Geezus....what tards....






Professional Racing and Driving Coach

Larry Herman

Good! It's about time someone rattled their cage a little. It needed to be done.

Streak

Yes, they did just that to their credit. I'm looking for reasons to see this in a different light. Maybe using Porsche's marketing machine is a little payback in the direction of Action Express? There is real monetary value there. Maybe, at this point, it's all Porsche can do now to show support for the rogue Cayenne program? Trying to spin this!

NaroEscape

Why? Because the flat 6 iteration is what Porsche wants to promote. The 911 is their flagship car, it's their history and they want to promote the connection of your street sports car to the racing program.

I'm not 100% sure Porsche has ever really embraced the DP cars anyway, but then again, none of the engine manufacturers have really. It's a kit car that private teams piece together. Even Penske wasn't fond of it.

I agree. Especially since this year promises to be a bit thin in the Porsche pro ranks.

APKhaos

^ +1
Just got off the phone with a friend who knows the backstory intimately. There are so many threads to this story! It might take some time, but the full story will eventually be told and it will be quite an epic tale.

smlporsche

Big grins for the Cayman and V8 Cayanne engine platforms.

I've always heard (tenth hand) that Porsche was a "small" company and could only devote the resources to fully develop the GT 1 based engine for racing...

Now that they're part of one of the largest automobile companies in the world with a respectable engineering staff of its own maybe the green light will be given to further develop their other engines / platforms.....