Team principal Sam Hignett insisted that fourth position for its Porsche 963 LMDh shared by Will Stevens, Yifei Ye and Antonio Felix da Costa was still a strong result, even though the car effectively lost a top-three finish to the best of the Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercars as the result of a drive-through penalty.
He pointed out that the Bahrain 8 Hours on Saturday was only the fifth start for Jota's Porsche, which came on stream two races into the 2023 season at Spa at the end of April.
“If you’d asked me back then that we’d be fighting with Ferrari for a podium and finishing only nine tenths behind after eight hours of racing, I would have taken that,” Hignett told Autosport.
“This is a good result for us, and everyone in the team should be pleased.”
He then made reference to the humble location of the team’s workshops.
“We’re the boys from the farmyard racing against the might of Maranello on maybe a tenth of its budget,” Hignett added.
“I think our car did an overtake on a Ferrari five times during the race, so how can we be disappointed?”
Stevens briefly ran third in the opening hour, Ye established the car in fourth and then da Costa began a charge that took him past Nicklas Nielsen in #50 and towards Mike Conway in the second-placed Toyota GR010 HYBRID LMH.
Source: Autosport