After its one-two race win in Mexico City, the Porsche LMP Team sees the deck being reshuffled for the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC): On September 16, the six-hour race at the Circuit of the Americas (COTA) in Austin, Texas (USA) will likely be held in demanding heat. In recent years it started at 5 pm and ended at 11 pm which meant half the race took place after dark in cooler temperatures. For 2017, it has been rescheduled to start at noon and finish at 6 pm. The ambient temperatures at 5 pm were still over 35 degrees Celsius last year. In 2014, the race was interrupted because of heavy rain. Everything would seem to be possible in Austin.
In what is the fourth and final season for the innovative prototype Porsche 919 Hybrid, the Porsche LMP Team is aiming to achieve a third consecutive world championship title for manufacturers and drivers. Porsche has now scored 198 points in the manufacturers’ world championship with Toyota on 141.5 points. In the drivers’ rankings, Earl Bamber (NZ), Timo Bernhard (DE) and Brendon Hartley (NZ) lead with 134 points. After wins in Le Mans, at the Nürburgring and in Mexico, they are 41 points ahead of the best placed Toyota trio. Neel Jani (CH), André Lotterer (DE) and Nick Tandy (GB) lie third in the championship (64 points).
“I have good memories in Austin,” commented Bamber. “I have won the Porsche Supercup Championship there in 2014 and it is also the place where I took my first ever GT win for Porsche in 2016. It is a track I really, really like. I’m especially looking forward to the triple right-hander at the end of the lap as this will be quite special in the LMP1 car. I also love the area as well. Austin is always beautiful. I spend quite some time there with coaching local guys.”
For Toyota, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi finished on the podium in Austin 12 months ago and will be aiming to repeat that feat, alongside #7 TS050 HYBRID team-mate José María López who will experience the circuit for the first time.
The #8 TS050 HYBRID features a revised driver line-up for this race. Anthony Davidson will not make the trip to Austin due to personal reasons, so his place alongside Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima will be taken by Stéphane Sarrazin on a one-off basis.
The team endured a tough race in Mexico, finishing third and fourth after suffering a downforce deficit on rivals Porsche at the high altitude in Mexico City. That saw TOYOTA slip 56.5 points behind in the manufacturers’ standings, with the #8 crew now 41 points adrift in the drivers’.
The event adopts a different schedule this year, reverting to a daytime race after three years as a day-night contest. That presents a challenge for the team and drivers, with heat and humidity expected to be at their highest soon after the midday race start.
After Austin, the WEC season moves to Asia for the final three races, in Japan, China and Bahrain, which will decide the outcome of the World Championship titles.
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