Best Porsche 963 tackles the Road America race from second place
August 6, 2023
- Matt Campbell turns a sensational lap in the No. 7 car
- Porsche Penske Motorsport sister car in seventh place
- Proton Competition tenth on the grid for GTP debut
- Customer teams among backmarkers in GTD classes
The Porsche Penske Motorsport works team's two Porsche 963s will start the eighth race of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season from positions two and seven. In qualifying at Road America in the state of Wisconsin, Matt Campbell drove a sensational lap in the No. 7 hybrid prototype: The Australian lapped the 6.515-kilometre circuit in 1:47.798 minutes and missed pole position by just 0.068 seconds. Briton Nick Tandy qualified seventh in the sister car.
Stuttgart. Qualifying for round eight of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season took place under cloudy skies and pleasant temperatures of around 22 degrees Celsius. On asphalt that was only slightly warmer, the drivers needed several warm-up laps to bring the tyres into the optimum operating window for their pole position attempt. Matt Campbell waited patiently behind the wheel of the #7 Porsche 963 and only launched his attack with three minutes left on the clock. With some significant improvements in all three sectors of the track, the Australian works driver managed to catapult from eighth to second place. Nick Tandy from the UK also improved in his final laps and finished seventh in 1:48.332 minutes.
"Second place on the grid is a positive surprise for us. We hadn't expected that," comments a pleased Urs Kuratle, Director Factory Motorsport LMDh. "It probably helped us that the temperatures didn't rise too high in qualifying. It's also supposed to be cloudy and cool on race day. Those are promising conditions for us. Matt turned a very good lap. We expect to be in a good position for the race. I'm looking forward to it – not least due to the fact that four Porsche 963s are racing at the same time in the GTP class for the first time."
"It was clear for all to see that we were not yet at our best on the first day at Road America. But our team did an excellent job after the practice sessions," Jonathan Diuguid sums up. The Managing Director Porsche Penske Motorsport adds: "With the help of our colleagues from Weissach, we've made significant progress and the car is now running much better. Matt put in a great lap. Theoretically, even pole position would have been possible, as the sum of his best sector times shows. Nick was a bit further back, but I'm sure we'll see both cars putting in a strong performance in the race."
The eighth round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in Elkhart Lake in the state of Wisconsin will start on Sunday, 6. August at 10:10 a.m. local time (5:10 p.m. CEST). Outside the USA and Canada, the 2:40 hour race can be watched on a free livestream on imsa.tv.
Drivers' comments on qualifying
Matt Campbell (Porsche 963 #7): "On Friday we didn't find our rhythm, especially in the first two sectors. Before qualifying, we made extensive changes to the setup – that definitely paid off. Many thanks to everyone involved in that process. I gave everything in the hunt for top times and was really pushing the limit. It's a shame that I missed out on pole by such a narrow margin. But from second on the grid, anything is possible in the race."
Nick Tandy (Porsche 963 #6): "I'm feel positive about the qualifying. We've made considerable progress compared to the practice sessions on Friday, the gap to the top is now much smaller. But personally, I'm not completely satisfied. When my tyres were just in the optimal operating window, I encountered a lot of traffic on the track. Overall, we've learned a lot today. We'll now use these insights to prepare for the race."