Saturday’s 12 hour race in Malaysia ended Porsche’s assault on sports car racing for the 2016 season. While the team, consisting of a pair of Manthey Racing prepared 911 GT3 R racers, appeared to be well set up for the race, having grabbed the pole position and dominated the early hours of the race, the best they could salvage was a second and fifth position finish. The race was pockmarked by failures from nearly everyone, as well as adverse conditions for much of the night-section of the race.
This was an exciting, old-school endurance kind of race, and the mantra “To finish first, you must first finish” holds true even today. Porsche fought well, and clicked off some truly impressive laps, but unfortunate issues cost them the race victory. Audi, fielding a pair of Phoenix Racing R8 LMS, brought them home first and third. This endurance race was important to Porsche, Audi, Ferrari, and McLaren as it represented the final round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge series.
On race day, the circuit was hot and humid, taking its toll on the cars and the drivers. As the green flag waved, the pole-sitting Porsche of Richard Lietz was overwhelmed by his teammate Earl Bamber who made a mega start from third on the grid. As Bamber streaked off into the distance, there was an incredible battle between Lietz behind, Alvaro Parente’s McLaren 650S, and Alessandro Pierguidi’s Ferrari 488 GT3. It was instantly evident that the Porsches were not able to make as many miles on a tank of fuel, pitting a full lap earlier than the rest of the competition. As a safety car came out in the second hour, Lietz’ teammate Fred Mako moved the #912 car up into second, setting up a dominant Porsche 1-2 run.
They maintained this for a number of laps until it started to rain at about four and a half hours in. The pair of Porsches were caught off guard as the rain started to fall and they lost significant time on course before they could pit for wet weather tires.
Near the halfway mark of the race, The #912 car started to notice braking inconsistencies and were forced to pit for a front pad and rotor change that cost them a lot of time on course. Later, once the rain had dried and the cars were back on slick tires, the #911 car was forced to pit for an unscheduled brake change as well. Both cars lost at least one lap with the swap, and it left them on the back foot for the competition, sitting in fourth and fifth. Earl Bamber, who spends much of his year in Malaysia, was not satisfied with this position on what is effectively his home circuit and put in a stellar charge toward the front.
Rain started to fall once again and Bambi made lemonade with the lemons, slicing through the standing water on track to carve his way through the field. Ultimately the finish saw Pilet/Tandy/Bamber finish in second, some five laps down from the leading Audi (who had suffered zero problems and no unscheduled pit stops). The Lietz/Christensen/Makowieki car finished down in fifth overall, an additional two laps in arrears.
This was the GT3 R’s first full season of competition, having debuted at Daytona last January. The car itself saw successes in IMSA, Pirelli World Challenge, and VLN endurance races at the Nurburgring. Finishing second in one of the biggest GT3 races of the season is nothing to be upset about, but having started the race from Pole, Porsche was certainly hoping for more. Onward and Upward, the Daytona 24 Hour race is just over a month away.