No. 84 Porsche Fourth at Barcelona despite crashes

During Qualifying, Pascal Theis put the Porsche 911 RSR GTE on third position with a quick lap of 1:40.570 - providing the team with ideal precursors for the 12 hour race on the Circuit de Barcelona Catalunya.

Theis also started the race for the team. After a solid start, the Frankfurt, Germany driver faced many battles during the opening two hours of the race, thanks to very tight and difficult to navigate traffic with the slower class cars in GT4 and TCR. There were some contacts with other cars, however luckily without consequences.

On lap 56 it was Theis taking over the overall lead, also thanks to the team having the superior pit strategy compared to other GTE class competitors. However, only two laps later, Theis missed the braking point going into furn four and went off the track into the gravel, touching the barriers.

Theis was able to continue the race, but the team never came back to claim the top position for the remainder of the race.

As the race went along things got more intense and eventually team-mate Aaron DePoy took over the car for his first double stint. The Hot Springs, Arkansas native showed excellent pace in a very eventful race.

However, two more incidents followed for the team between the third and eigthth hour of the race, with a GT4 class and TCR class car, respectively. With some significant damage as the consequence, the Porsche 911 RSR GTE had to come back into the pits for some repairs.

The team started to fall back further, yet was able to hold a position in the top ten. Nathan Manning took over the steering wheel as the team's third driver in the No. 84 Porsche RSR GTE, to take on his double stint at the halfway mark of the race.

"Traffic was really weird today. And then, of course, we ran into other problems as well - that was pretty frustrating for me, personally, I have to say.", Manning commented.

About mid-way through his first stint in the race, Manning suddenly faced electrical problems in the car. Even worse, Manning didn't make it back to the pits, so the car had to be towed by the track service. Fortunately the pit crew was able to fix the problem quickly and team-mate DePoy went back out to the race track for one more single stint.

© 2020 Fischer Motorsport Lap 256: Aaron DePoy gets involved in a major crash with two slower class cars at turn five

After that, Manning took over for another stint, when problems caught up with the team again. On the in lap at the end of his stint, the up-shift paddle on the steering wheel of the car broke and Manning had to slowly crawl back to thhe pits, where the pit crew replaced the steering wheel swiftly.

Still, the team lost more precious time and eventually found itself down by three laps to the class leaders. However, thanks to the fact many other teams also ran into trouble on this brutally hot day, the team was able to maintain fourth position and Aaron DePoy brought home the fourth place finish in the end.

"We had so many different problems today, I think we're fine with P4, I think.", said team owner Benjamin Fischer

"I have to compliment the team. This was not an easy race. We have made some mistakes also, but we never gave up and got the most out of the circumstances."

The fourth and final championship round of the 2020 iRacing Endurance Series takes place on October 17th at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

With the 12 Hours of Barcelona in the books, the No. 84 Porsche 911 RSR GTE team now sits in 19th place in the official GTE point standings and is mathematically eliminated from championship contention prior to the season finale.