The best Porsche 963 starts the race in Monza from eighth place.
09-07-2023 14:55 -
Qualifying for the 6-hour race of the FIA World Endurance Championship WEC in Monza took place under difficult conditions for the Porsche Penske Motorsport works team. Frédéric Makowiecki clocked a lap time of 1:35.973 minutes in the 15-minute session with the currently 506 kW (688 hp) Porsche 963. During the last adjustment of the so-called Balance of Performance (BoP) for the race in Monza, the racing car lost 10 kW of engine power. The Frenchman and his works driver colleagues Dane Cameron (USA) and Michael Christensen from Denmark will start the fifth race of the season from eighth position on Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Kévin Estre had to settle for a lap time of 1:36.497 minutes. The hybrid prototype of the Frenchman and his comrades-in-arms Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and André Lotterer from Germany are in tenth place. The final practice session on the 5.793-kilometre high-speed track in Monza's Royal Park took place in midsummer conditions with air temperatures of almost 32 degrees Celsius. The asphalt of the Grand Prix circuit even reached almost 50 degrees Celsius.
As the best customer team with the Porsche 963, Hertz Team Jota started the race from ninth place. Yifei Ye, protégé from Porsche Motorsport Asia-Pacific, set a lap time of 1:36.188 minutes. The Chinese shares the car with Briton William Stevens and Portuguese works driver António Félix da Costa. In its debut in the hypercar category, Proton Competition will start from twelfth place on Sunday. The German customer team only took delivery of their Porsche 963 shortly before the start of the race weekend. Qualifying driver Harry Tincknell from Great Britain set a lap time of 1:36.668 minutes. Together with the 2016 Le Mans overall winner Neel Jani from Switzerland and the Italian works driver Gianmaria Bruni, he takes the wheel of the hybrid racing car with starting number 99.
