expectations, saying: “It doesn’t give us a feeling of confidence - "We're going to Le Mans now as the underdog."
Porsche is confident their move from 6MJ to 8MJ will enable them to regenerate the maximum energy available around the 8.4 miles of La Sarthe. While Audi appears to have pegged back the straight-line gap to Porsche, it’s possible we could see the yo-yo effect between the two marques that put on such a dramatic showing at Silverstone.
That of course, is reliant on Porsche maintaining full capacity of their energy recovery system throughout the duration of the blue riband endurance event. At Spa, the leading Porsche lost 10km/ph over the last hour and numerous other reliability issues have plagued the Stuttgart outfit, despite the 2015 919-Hybrid being 30 kg’s lighter than last year.
“30kg’s is quite a lot of lap time”, says technical director Alexander Hitzinger.
“We were overweight last year so by stepping down that is performance in the pocket” he says.
No doubt every one of the main players will be searching their respective pockets for any loose performance that might have slipped through the cracks.