Thomas Laudenbach, the German manufacturer’s motorsport boss, explained that having Porsche Penske Motorsport masterminding the two factory campaigns has played a key role in the upturn in the fortunes of the 963 LMDh programme that began in the second half of last year and have continued into 2024.
“I think it is an advantage that it is one organisation, even though we have PPM in Mooresville [running the IMSA 963s] and PPM in Mannheim [running the WEC cars],” said Laudenbach ahead of this weekend’s Qatar 1812Km, the first race of this year’s WEC.
Laudenbach explained that the two IMSA wins at the end of 2023, its race-leading performance at the Fuji WEC round in September, the Daytona 24 Hours victory this January and now its pace so far at Qatar “clearly shows that we made the right decisions in the way we went, joining the Penske organisation with Roger and taking a global approach”.
“It was a long-term decision and I really hope that we can start to harvest,” he continued.
“It can be easier to look for a quick win, but sometimes you have to invest.”
Roger Penske, who is also in Qatar, added: “We wouldn’t be where we are today if we had two organisations.
“There is complete transparency, so if we are working on reliability in the USA we are working on reliability for the WEC as well, and vice versa.
Source: Autosport