Triple victory for Porsche in
strongest GT field in history
The 24 hour race in Daytona
remains Porsche territory: At the cliff-hanger 50th anniversary of the
long distance classic in Florida/USA, the Zuffenhausen sports car
manufacturer celebrated a convincing triple triumph in the GT class
against strong opposition from the likes of Audi, BMW, Corvette and
Ferrari. Victory went to Porsche works driver Richard Lietz (Austria)
in the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup fielded by Magnus Racing with teammates
René Rast (Germany) as well as Americans Andy Lally and John
Potter. After a thrilling finale in front of record crowds on the
Daytona International Speedway, Lietz saw the flag 9.412 seconds ahead
of his factory pilot colleague Wolf Henzler. The previous year’s winner
from Germany shared the cockpit of TRG Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup
with Jeroen Bleekemolen (Netherlands), Marc Goossens (Belgium), Spencer
Pumpelly (USA) and Steven Bertheau (USA). Scoring third place was
Porsche works driver Marc Lieb (Germany) with Americans Hurley Haywood,
Leh Keen and Andrew Davis in the legendary starting number 59 Porsche
911 GT3 Cup run by the Daytona-winning squad Brumos Racing.
“Today we all witnessed why Daytona is one of the world’s most
fascinating races,” said Wolfgang Hatz, Board Member for Research and
Development at Porsche AG. “For me that was a 24 hour sprint. The
front-runners were incredibly close right to the flag. I’m very pleased
to see that we had virtually no technical problems with our cars and
the teams and drivers did such a magnificent job under difficult
conditions. Congratulations and well done to you all.” Porsche’s head
of motorsport, Hartmut Kristen, commented after this latest success:
“The 50th running of this classic was unbelievably exciting. For much
of the time, there were ten GT cars in one lap. The spectators were
again treated to some fantastic motorsport. And it’s great of course to
celebrate an impressive victory in front of such spectacular crowds.
The Porsche 911 GT3 Cup again brilliantly underlined its outstanding
reliability at this extremely difficult race.” With its latest win,
Porsche has now scored 22 overall and 74 class wins, making it the most
successful manufacturer in the history of this race.
The anniversary race of the
endurance classic in Florida, at which the new Porsche 911 ran as the
safety car, was stronger than ever before. In the GT class alone, 45
cars lined up to start. “To beat so many great drivers, the
crème de la crème of GT pilots, is simply awesome,” said
the winner Richard Lietz. “Winning this race for Porsche is a highlight
of my career, comparable only to my two victories in Le Mans.” His
teammate René Rast, the two-time champion of the Porsche Mobil 1
Supercup, to whom Porsche gave the chance to compete at Daytona in
recognition of his excellent performance last season, said: “Everything
ran smoothly. We didn’t experience a single technical problem. That was
only the second 24 hour race of my career and undoubtedly the toughest.
During one of my stints I spent three and a half hours at the wheel.
That was incredibly exhausting.”
In the gripping final phase, Wolf Henzler again pulled out all stops,
but the leading Richard Lietz managed to stave him off to the flag. “He
was just too quick today,” Henzler stated. “But to climb the podium
again after my win last year is a huge success for me.” With the
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup fielded by Brumos Racing, which took off into the
race from pole position, Marc Lieb pitted shortly before the flag for a
‘splash and dash’ refuelling stop. Despite having led the race for long
distances up until this point, he was unable to rejoin the fight for
victory. “We experienced a bit of bad luck towards the end with our
race strategy,” he said. “But although I was rather disappointed
initially, it’s still a great team effort to come third against such an
incredibly strong GT field.”
Turning the fastest race lap of
the entire GT field, Porsche factory pilot Marco Holzer (Germany)
turned heads at the classic on the Daytona International Speedway. He
didn’t, however, manage to reach the flag. “Everything was running
beautifully with our car until the retirement,” he commented. “But we
had a bit of bad luck under the yellow flag. Three times we came in to
refuel just before a caution phase and lost laps because of it. That’s
rough.”
Lady Luck wasn’t with Porsche
works drivers Joerg Bergmeister (Germany) and Patrick Long (USA)
either. With the Porsche 911 GT3 Cup of Flying Lizard Motorsports,
which they shared with American Seth Neiman and Mike Rockenfeller
(Switzerland), they were holding their own with the front-runners early
on, but fell back and had to settle for 15th place at the flag. “Early
on in the race we were running in the top three,” said Patrick Long.
“Our pace was very fast. But Seth’s collision with a Daytona prototype
put us out of serious contention.”
Race result
GT class
1. Lietz/Lally/Rast/Potter
(A/USA/D/USA), Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, 727 laps
2.
Henzler/Bleekemolen/Bertheau/Goossens/Pumpelly (D/NL/USA/B/USA),
Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, 727 laps
3. Lieb/Haywood/Davis/Keen
(D/USA/USA/USA), Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, 726 laps
4. Edwards/Bremer/Liddell
(USA/DK/GB), Camaro GT.R, 726 laps
5. Beretta/Bertolini/Vilander
(MC/I/SF), Ferrari 458, 726 laps
6.
Franchitti/Bomarito/Hinchcliffe/Tremblay (GB/USA/CAN/USA), Mazda RX-8,
722 laps
7.
Pilet/Farnbacher/Keating/Simonsen (F/D/USA/DK), Porsche 911 GT3 Cup,
721 laps
11.
Armindo/Curtis/Lewis/Sofronas/Willsey (F/USA/USA/USA/USA), Porsche 911
GT3 Cup, 713 laps
14.
Avenatti/Faieta/Poordad/Sweedler/Wagner (USA/USA/USA/USA/USA), Porsche
911 GT3 Cup, 707 laps
15.
Bergmeister/Long/Neiman/Rockenfeller (D/USA/USA/D), Porsche 911 GT3
Cup, 706 laps
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