The German manufacturer has now matched its number of wins at the Floridian sportscar classic to its record tally of 19 Le Mans 24 Hours triumphs.
While acknowledging the size of the achievement in the IMSA SportsCar Championship’s biggest event, Kuratle admits this will bring “huge pressure” for the world’s most prestigious sportscar race at Le Mans in June.
“All those numbers, obviously it's huge for us,” said Kuratle. “It is huge. Especially if you think where we're coming from last year here, that was not our best performance I have to say, and there was a lot of obviously lessons learned we had throughout the year.
“Obviously, it pays out, so there was a lot of work from all our part. It was not only the IMSA team we have out of Mooresville, but also the team in Mannheim [in Germany]. Obviously, people in Weissach, the development team, and also our chassis partner Multimatic.
“We had a lot of lessons to learn from last year, but again, it pays out now.”
Kuratle admitted that this also raises the high expectations of the programme, which were egged on 86-year-old team-owning veteran Roger Penske with his post-race comment of: “This is one of the biggest wins we’ve had, now we’ve got to go for the big one at Le Mans, you know that.”
Source: Autosport