The German outfit, a long-time campaigner of Porsche GT machinery, will become the second customer team in the WEC’s top Hypercar class this weekend at Monza after fellow Porsche squad Jota, which first raced its 963 at Spa.
Jani joins Harry Tincknell and Gianmaria Bruni at the wheel of the WeatherTech-liveried #99 car for the fifth round of the season as well as the final two races of 2023 at Fuji and Bahrain.
Looking ahead to his first top-class WEC appearance since his final appearance for Rebellion Racing at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2019, Jani acknowledged that Proton’s limited experience with prototypes means the team can only realistically aim to take advantage of others’ problems.
“It will be a big challenge,” Jani told Autosport. “They are an established team in GT racing but I think they will have a steep uphill curve at the beginning, also because they got the car much later than everyone else.
“That doesn’t make it easy, but I’m ready for it and I think we can only surprise.
“Jota is basically the reference, and they have a lot of experience with prototypes. We have to look at how they did in their first races. In Spa it was not easy for them, at Le Mans they were fast but they had problems [in qualifying].
“A lot of problems are still happening in LMDh, a lot of cars are retiring, so we just need to be there when the music stops.”
Source: Autosport