Porsche welcomes shift to ‘normal engineering work’ on Daytona return

Porsche is welcoming a focus on ‘normal engineering work’ ahead of its LMDh car’s second Daytona 24 Hours appearance this weekend after battling a range of technical challenges during its debut season.

The German company’s factory LMDh director Urs Kuratle has been upbeat heading into this weekend’s IMSA SportsCar Championship season-opener where the works Penske team is running two Porsche 963s. It is backed up by single-car efforts from customer teams Proton Competition and JDC-Miller Motorsports.

The mentality is distinctly different compared to 12 months ago when Porsche pitched up to Daytona riddled with uncertainty about how it would fare. Both cars encountered significant issues during the race including a gearbox failure for one car and a high-voltage battery change for the other.

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Knowledge from that sobering experience, plus a nine-race campaign that produced more headaches than hangovers, has resulted in a wiser and better prepared team as part of a more informed GTP field in general. A major reason for that is the continuous development of software which is one of the few areas where performance gains can be gradually unlocked in GTP or Hypercar. Hardware-based performance updates, called Evo jokers, are subject to agreement with the FIA and only five are allowed for each car homologation.

‘We have a general understanding of the car, Kuratle told Racecar Engineering. ‘Last year, it was new to everybody. We discussed whether an LMP2 would win this race. There has been so much development in all the cars in all the different areas [since then]. Everybody knows their own car and the tyre much better, and everybody was testing much more.

‘Daytona is a special track. It will be interesting to wait for Sebring and some other tracks to really judge the gain from 2023 to 2024. It’s definitely much more relaxed. The situation is more under control.’

Despite having a better understanding of its car, Porsche was not exempt from issues during the Roar qualifying event that took place the weekend prior to the Daytona 24 Hours. Drivers reported oscillations that made the car difficult to handle on the high-speed sections of the banked circuit. There were also comments about difficulties on the brakes and turn-in, which was one of the Porsche’s main flaws last year as the inside wheel often locked up when the car’s weight balance shifted to…