Photo: Porsche AG
We have been waiting for so long to see our favorite races finally take place, and suddenly, we find out that everyone sighed in relief a bit too early. After the iconic Le Mans race last weekend, the safety measures in place have yielded worrisome results for some of the teams. Porsche, for example, is one of the affected brands – but, fortunately, the Stuttgart-based automaker has a big pool of resources.
After finding out that some of the staff present in France had positive virus tests, Porsche decided it had probable cause for drastic measures. Those had to be taken for the safety of everyone involved, naturally, and made it impossible for nine drivers and four teams to contest the upcoming 24-hour race at the Nurburgring.
More so, Porsche quickly decided to also retire its GT Team from the seventh round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Fortunately for the car enthusiasts that eagerly waited for the legendary German sports car brand’s appearance at the Green Hell, the company managed to rethink its strategy, and just like a soccer club decided to start bringing substitutions from the reserve bench.
As such, the last-minute changes include new crews for the 911 GT3 R cars, among them being two former Le Mans winners and endurance champions: Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Earl Bamber (New Zealand).
They are not the only fresh faces – the race will also be contested on behalf of the Porsche brand by Jörg Bergmeister (2019 GTE-Am class winner at Le Mans), the young Nico Menzel (Germany), as well as seasoned Austrian specialist Norbert Siedler.
Two customer teams will receive a helping hand from Porsche works driver Sven Müller (Germany), Dennis Olsen (Norway) and Klaus Bachler (Austria). They are all coming as stand-ins for the nine drivers that had to be retired from the Nurburgring race (September 26th and 27th) after routine checks at Le Mans returned three positive tests for Porsche employees on site.
The race is kicking off on Saturday, September 26th, at 3:30 pm with four Porsche customer teams and seven 911 GT3 R in the SP9 class. As a result of the reshuffle, the company managed to save most of its campaign for this year’s edition, although the fan-favorite “Grello” Porsche No. 911 from Manthey-Racing will remain a no-show. Still, the brand is confident about its fortunes – around a third of the 100+ cars ready to do battle are Porsche 911 and 718 Cayman racers.
More so, Porsche quickly decided to also retire its GT Team from the seventh round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Fortunately for the car enthusiasts that eagerly waited for the legendary German sports car brand’s appearance at the Green Hell, the company managed to rethink its strategy, and just like a soccer club decided to start bringing substitutions from the reserve bench.
As such, the last-minute changes include new crews for the 911 GT3 R cars, among them being two former Le Mans winners and endurance champions: Timo Bernhard (Germany) and Earl Bamber (New Zealand).
They are not the only fresh faces – the race will also be contested on behalf of the Porsche brand by Jörg Bergmeister (2019 GTE-Am class winner at Le Mans), the young Nico Menzel (Germany), as well as seasoned Austrian specialist Norbert Siedler.
Two customer teams will receive a helping hand from Porsche works driver Sven Müller (Germany), Dennis Olsen (Norway) and Klaus Bachler (Austria). They are all coming as stand-ins for the nine drivers that had to be retired from the Nurburgring race (September 26th and 27th) after routine checks at Le Mans returned three positive tests for Porsche employees on site.
The race is kicking off on Saturday, September 26th, at 3:30 pm with four Porsche customer teams and seven 911 GT3 R in the SP9 class. As a result of the reshuffle, the company managed to save most of its campaign for this year’s edition, although the fan-favorite “Grello” Porsche No. 911 from Manthey-Racing will remain a no-show. Still, the brand is confident about its fortunes – around a third of the 100+ cars ready to do battle are Porsche 911 and 718 Cayman racers.
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